New Discovery in an Old House and the Flying Giant

Restless nights, for me, lead to odd dreams when I eventually fall asleep. Before the dreaming happened I imagined there was some sort of naming quest I had to complete before falling asleep. I had to think of certain items or ideas and I was frantic. Then I realized I was just trying to fall asleep after hearing the cat clawing at the door or Odin moving to a new sleeping place and collapsing on the floor with a thump. Finally, sleep.

I was in a house. It was a house I recognized as my own but not any house I've ever lived in in real life. I have dreams with this situation often. What was different this time was that there was some sort of loud party happening with random people coming in and out. I was stressed out because of a police presence that I didn't see but knew was nearby. Then I saw this older white couple that lived in the house with us. I had forgotten that they lived there since they kept to themselves but there they were, in the party, standing in the kitchen, awkwardly in the way. I tried speaking to them but communication was difficult. This led to a discovery just past what I previously thought was the boundary of the kitchen. There was a whole other section of the house, another kitchen (smaller and less well equipped), another living room with nice furniture, a sitting room with wonderful views of a mountain and the sea.

I yelled to Liia about all the extra furniture we could take into the main part of the house. This wasn't the property of our old white housemates, it had just been sitting there, for years perhaps. I went into the sitting room and looked out the window. The mountain was tan and red and jutted out of the water. Someone was sitting in an inner tube, lounging in the water, floating along. The next few moments were a blur. A airplane came careening out of nowhere and smoke obscured the floating man in the sea. The plane zoomed past my view and towards what I discovered was long stretch of beach, similar to the most familiar beaches to me in South Florida. Plenty of people were watching this airplane crash into the sea and a giant emerged, walking in the water to I don't know where. Again, it was a blur.

Suddenly I was piloting a small plane. I remember red. There was no window to see ahead of me, just small windows on the side. I don't know how I got in the plane and I didn't know how to pilot it. I kept swooping up and down, panicking until I also crashed into the sea. Then I was on the shore and in a car, speaking with friends. I don't remember the conversation but I looked down to my phone and said to them, "I can rewind this" or something along those lines. I pressed a button and I was back at the window, staring at the floating man in the sea. The plane reappeared, slightly smaller this time, and crashed closer to the mountain. I hit rewind again. The same scene, slightly different, and the giant reemerged and came walking towards me. He shrank as he came closer which is to say he appeared exactly the same size, out of context, until he was directly in front of me, the size of an average sized man. He wore brown colors, rags. He was dirty and painted dark colors. Short hair. Think warlike characters from videogames who might have guns or might use melee weapons. That doesn't help but that's what I thought.

Soon we were in a room and others were there as well. He was talking to me about something. I had some sort of problem or was lacking some sort of knowledge. He was promising to fix this, to enlighten me or teach me or fix me. I don't remember which it was. I was sitting on a chair, white if I remember correctly. He walked behind me and lightly placed his hands on my shoulders. He began to speak, the process was about to start. I was excited and prepared to see what would happen. I wanted to know what I didn't know. I wanted to understand something new.

It was at that moment that my fucking alarm went off and I slowly rose from the bed to let the dog out, take a shower, and make my way to the bus stop to attend a conference. I am there now, writing this as the keynote speaker is talking about education and technology and blogging and twitter and facebook and cognition and other interesting things.

I desperately want to know what the giant/non-giant had to teach me.

Blogging D2L: Evening One

So you're attending a conference that is way larger than you anticipated for educational software. Apparently it is a big deal and corporate sponsors are waggling their dicks around all week to get more clients to buy more shit to educate more children. I mean, it's a good cause right? To be fair, I like the system so far and think it has a lot to offer and is one of the most easy to use online classroom systems I've seen but still, this shit is ridiculous.

I had two free beers at a famous brewery, free pool, and the chef was more than happy (in kind of a weird way) to make me my vegetarian (vegan) tamales. That shit was good, but he came out from the back room to talk to me specifically about the options he had to make me. I'm the dude with the mohawk and no idea what's going on around me at this conference. After taking my order, he finds me in this cavernous building and delivers my food personally, with an assistant next to him nodding away and smiling. Ten minutes later, he's walking up to me asking how everything is. I see him later wandering around looking for the dude he made a veggie burger for. Great service. It's just weird that all of this is for educational software. BIG DEAL.

While I was waiting for my delicious veggie tamales, I befriended a man ordering a beer. I was sitting at the bar with a salad and a roll and he ordered a beer then someone made a joke nearby or something and it was just too awkward two random dudes at a random conference sitting alone at the bar so we started talking and played three games of pool. He beat me, then scratched on the 8ball, then I beat him. I win I guess. This was all well and good except he kept making comments about the waitress and some other lady at a pool table across the way. He was cautious, I'll give him that. Things like how the waitress was pretty hot and the best thing around considering the conference we were attending. "Not the place for the ladies" or something like that. Who cares if he was more articulate? I certainly don't. Then he was talking about how he couldn't concentrate because of the lady at the other pool table. She was alright I guess but this guy was almost salivating and definitely staring when it wasn't his turn at the table. He wasn't the creepiest guy I've met but definitely someone on the prowl, drinking to get his confidence up to approach "the ladies". He even made awkward jokes with the waitress about the crowd of people at this private event. Meanwhile, I was just like, "give me the beer with the most alcohol" only it sounded more like, "So what else do you have besides this beer that I'm drinking now? (in my head) Oh, ok, not the pilsner, not the wheat beer, not the gross desert stout, ah yeah that one sounds like a lot of alcohol content for my free ticket (out loud) Yeah I'll have that one"

Anyway, this is boring but I felt I should document it.

Also, when I first arrived at Peter's place, there were dudes outside filming themselves beating up another dude. The household believes it was a gang initiation ritual. Sounds about right to me.

Rhymin

Blogadoggadoodoo
Floppledopplegangerzoo
bangerdangerdab'lldo
Zappatappatippecanoe
How do you do?

Illusions!

I don't disagree with most of my friends but I find it hard to believe that there is a pure, uncomplicated pearl of peace nestled within each of them, forcing its way to the surface when violence is celebrated. I understand the ideal of peace, the desire for human on human violence to end once and for all, and the anxiety over watching fellow Americans scream the initials of our country over and over at the report of Bin Laden's death. But, to me, it is precisely this visceral outpouring of emotion and joy that speaks volumes about human nature. I don't mean to say that humans are evil, but we are certainly violent. We have to be. We have had to be over the years to survive in a hostile world. I know the ideal is a preserved environment, free from human harm, humans tending to the Earth like mythical good shepherds, life expanding! But this isn't even remotely possible. We need to die. We need to kill. It's inevitable. I don't mean we need to be cruel, but we cannot live without killing. Life does not exist without death. We keep populating a planet, killing on a vaster scale than necessary to survive. Again, this isn't about STOPPING killing, it's about acknowledging that this is in fact what we are doing and what we have been doing for thousands of years. The sooner we can admit this, the sooner we can get on to some viable solutions.

As for the specific rejoicing over the death of Bin Laden, sure, it's disturbing. I was not out in a crowd chanting and I didn't want to be. But I did feel an odd sense of satisfaction. I did feel like something important happened. I have no illusions that this is any REAL progress but perhaps John Stewart is right in his notion that the face of evil transposed for many Americans on to all the faces of the Arab world is gone. There might be room for healing, room for peace. Maybe not. Who knows.

The thing that disturbs me about all this is the violence with which peace is invoked. Clearly not a physical violence but there is a knee jerk reaction to it all that is unsettling to me. The rush to declare oneself peaceful, to show the world "I AM NOT ONE OF THESE ASSHOLES CHEERING" to condemn it, to feel superior really. I know I know someone will argue that that's not the case but we have to use an opportunity like this to counter hate and promote peace. But it fails. I try to put myself in the shoes of the cheering masses and think about what I would think if I read these things or someone misquoted MLK, Jr. at me. And I would probably think, "NOT NOW YOU FUCKING HIPPIE BIN LADEN IS FUCKING DEAD!" And I kind of feel that way as someone ambivalent about the whole thing. I think it's nice that we have the ability to speak our minds on these issues and promote our causes and try to change the world, but I also try to think pragmatically about what will actually work to achieve that change. I think being the change, as Gandhi said, is nice, but it's not always effective. I think an honest assessment of what humans are capable of and what we're up against is necessary. Harboring illusions about the true possibility of peace is dangerous to the cause of peace.

I don't know. I just get frustrated. I've lost a little idealism, I suppose, but I still want the same things a lot of my friends want, as professed on Facebook. But context is important. True compassion for other people is not giving them the finger of peace when they are happy. Perhaps there are other ways to capitalize on an event such as this, work with the perhaps misguided joy of people in a different way. I'm not very good at this either, striking back at these sincere attempts at promoting peace by posting articles about the MLK, Jr. misquote and discussing a version of what I said here on Facebook but I don't really think that's changing anything much either.

And now someone will organize a rally and no one will care but some folks will feel good and that's ok too. We need our illusions.

An old stupid poem I found

If you are in a car
Know this
I didn't invent the car
And I didn't invent a damn thing
It's all already been said
Done and did again
I once read a quote
"The overabundance of truth cannot be consumed"
and
"All possible interpretations, even the most contradictory - all true"
so
The overwhelming truth is that it's all true
and we'll never know it all
so where does reality lie?
Or is reality just a lie?
All the cliches can't be wrong
We tell ourselves the truth
and so do they
and we're all just being honest
Brutally and sincerely
Compassionately
With every ton of our being
George Washington never told a lie
but that's a lie
just like the cherry tree
Cross my heart and hope to die
Scouts honor
My hand is on the bible
Nails chewed to the flesh
The whole truth and nothing but the truth
The world is on trial
And we're all wrongfully accused
Billions sent to the electric chair
Billions sizzling and scared
Seeking the forgiveness for a crime without a witness
That everyone saw
And everyone confessed
That they did this
Because the truth left no stone unturned
Because evey stone was simultaneously turned
And every stone was left unturned
And we all burned
were burned
and always will be burned
Or is it the opposite?
Can the truth reverse regret?
And are we all just the gods and godesses of our pets?
And the truth remains I'm now just rhyming where it fits
Can you find the truth
just by faking it?

Primer 2

At this moment 10% of my final paper for Rhetorical Places is complete. I have a guiding idea that I can use to fill in 20-25 pages but it's likely going to be sloppy. I have to manipulate my field notes, not in an unethical way, to be exemplars of the theory I am pushing. The challenge here is going to be using rhetorical sources from class. I am not going to overload it with sources. I don't think I need to. If I find out later that I do need to well then so be it. It's due tomorrow so fuck it.

Consumption consumption consumption.

Primer

Deep breaths and such. When it comes down to it, the amount of time I spend writing a paper (10 pages, that is) comes down to 2-5 hours depending on the complexity. Sure, there is reading and prep work involved but really it's not much actual writing time. And since I never edit before turning in, this means even less time. Which means, start fucking writing. This post here is my primer, reminding me that I have the ability to write more than 140 characters or the Facebook equivalent with links and videos. With the amount of time I wasted this weekend, I could have all three final papers done. But I didn't have the panic then. The panic that inspires haphazard, coffee fueled, sleep deprived sentences to form on the page. Most of the time I don't even know what I'm saying before it appears in front of me. There is some cognitive science that explains this but I don't remember where I read it. Anyway, in hindsight it usually turns out ok if not a little rough around the edges.

I just shifted in my seat and farted in the process. Did the people behind me hear? Who knows! Head phones in, shame averted.

So I am off to write about the problem of parrhesia in modern democracy and human affinity for Truth. OR some such nonsense.

There, that's like a page, right? No problem.

TELEVISION

Tonight I end the tyranny of unfinished seasons of lovable television shows. Tonight, I will begin to focus and not be left wondering, "What happens!?" Dexter season two is complete. I will not procure the next few seasons until the summer. Veronica Mars ends tonight. I swear I'm not addicted. Your mom is addicted. YOUR MOM.

Here it is...

Skate

Bought a new board. The deck is Null, a local skateboard company, with Venture trucks, Spitfire 92D 54mm wheels, and I actually don't remember what kind of bearings. It's an 8.25 width instead of the 7.75 that I used to ride. I've only ridden it about 1/6 of a mile but so far it is super smooth, smoother than I've ever ridden before, and I feel more balanced even on faster downhills. I'm looking forward to riding around more and getting back into skating in general. This has been a boring update.