(Phaysis)

“Would you like to go grab a filling but stomach-annoyingly spicy meal for a high price, followed by a wet drive to and a muddy parking at an overcrowded neighborhood coffee shop for some mediocre but hot coffee and pitifully poor wireless internet access?”

“Sure.”

It is a sunday. The UT students are back. It is raining; not the heavy rain that breeds excitement, but the light “well, I think I’ll rain…nah, hold on…would you settle for some drizzles on your glasses?” kind of rain. The kind of rain that clings to your side windows and obscures your vision when you’re trying to pull out into traffic. The kind of rain that falls from clouds that just stay all day, obscuring the sun and chilling the ground. The kind of rain that breeds mold.

It is a sunday.

I slept for something resembling 10 hours. It wasn’t a spectacular kind of sleep. It just hung there and lingered. The dreams and fantasies dragged on while my twisted backbone generated enough pain to make the dreams not worth the alpha waves. As I sit here 5 hours after waking up and after a hot shower, some stretching, and a warm meal, my back is still hurting. It’s times like this that I wish I had a drug habit.

There is this guy here at this coffee house who I don’t think I like. I’ve never met the guy. Don’t even know his name. But I don’t like him. Two months ago I was sitting at Spiderhouse, another coffeeshop, with an old friend of mine; she was giving me the lowdown on one of her ex-boyfriends who disappeared from her life and then reappeared at Spiderhouse that night to do the “I don’t see you, you don’t exist” thing at her. She pointed him out to show me who he was as he was about to walk by. He saw me looking at him and nailed his eyes back at me as he kept walking by, like he was saying, “You got a problem, fuckhead?” But I didn’t look away. For once, I didn’t look away. And now that guy is here, at Flightpath.

I shouldn’t feel anything about the whole thing. I shouldn’t. But I do. It was a glare, a daring glare. The kind of glare that communicates with the Animal Urge underneath. He’s nothing to me. I’m nothing to him. And I have this fear/anger motivation. My friends that night, when I mentioned the exchange, said, “Dude, it’s nothing. Just let it go. Don’t let it get to you.” This is the kind of thing that happens on 6th street downtown. A stare is an offense punishable by an asskicking. But nothing happened. Nothing has happened. And I’m a fool for holding onto it.

Fuck.

It is a sunday. Hello.

The past two or so weeks have driven me kinda nuts. Three weeks ago I started coming down with a cold; the whole ears/sinus/throat thing. Well, it went away after an evening, and a few days later I went out to eat; had a meal with some chips and salsa. The salsa irritated my throat which started swelling up. This, of course, broke down the defenses enough to let whatever was waiting in the wings to come in and give me a full-on infection. I had a cold. Lacking the desire to go anywhere or do anything, and wracked with morals that prevented me from spreading my cold to others, I stayed at home for a week at a half. I went to work like normal, but I had to take a day off after the doctor visit because I was too ill to work. And now I’m finally getting well enough to go out; I’m still sniffling, and my chest tightens up every now and then. I’m at 80%, but that’s it.

I hate the cold, damp weather of mid-winter in central Texas.

My time spent on IRC these days is less than stellar. Each day that passes shows me that I’m not cut from the same cloth as most of the people in the one IRC channel I frequent. There are a few people I revere; the rest can rot away, I don’t mind. It is in IRC that I keep getting proven, day after day, that it’s just not worth speaking up or having discussion because someone, thanks to remoteness and anonymity, will fire off an insult or two and make my attempt at carrying a point across worth nothing. It seems the laws of the street apply online as well.

So should I give up on IRC as well, as I’ve given up on other things in the past year, or should I hold on or join other channels? This sounds so stupid. But this is the level my life is at these days. Debating my presence on IRC. Screwit. When the balance between the benefits of chatting with other people and having a good laugh is outweighed by swagger, bravado, attitudes, and insults, it is time to move on.

The balance is tipping.

A month ago was the beginning.

It all started innocously; after using the same installation of Windows 98 since November of 1998, transferring it from one hard drive to another and then to another, moving it from one computer to another, with various pieces of hardware moving in and out, and with no operating system reinstalls ever, I had reached a point where the limitations of my desktop OS of choice and the benefits of the most recent OS version far outweighed the familiarity and sentimental value of the old ways. My system, no matter how well kept, how closely guarded, how well configured, had developed deficiencies, inconsistencies, instabilities. I was running out of drive space. I had a spare 120 gig drive sitting on the other IDE channel with 8 partitions, into which Windows XP and Redhat Linux 9 was installed. With the exception of one 10-gig partition, the drive, as it stood, was useless to my Win98 installation. After a year of waffling on the triple-boot idea, I made the concrete choice. I had no better option than to drop the burden, upgrade my computer, and upgrade myself.

There was a previously-installed XP ready and waiting for me on the 20-gig primary partition, I wiped the other partitions on the large drive and combined the space into one partition giving me around 95gigs on the remainder. Perfect. All NTFS, relatively crash-tolerant, all set up with proper file permissions and everything. And for a while, things seemed good, and they were, except for one minor thing: my screen was too dim.

I played with the display settings and realized that XP was using the “reference” driver for my Voodoo3 video card, therefore I had little control over how bright the output was, and no control over color correction or anything. With the card’s manufacturer, 3Dfx, dot-bomb-dead and in the ground for four years now, my chance of finding a suitable XP driver for the card were slim; the only pickings were from a hobbyist group. No official support. The card, though it still functioned and worked well, was now a burden. It had reached the end of its time in modern equipment. Long live 3Dfx.

It was then that I remembered, “Hey, what about the video card I got as a thank-you gift a year ago?” Yes, the ATI All-In-Wonder card, with the built-in TV tuner. YES! So I found updated drivers for it on the company website, installed the card, dealt with the driver install, rebooted, and boom, I had a new video card and proper configuration drivers. No more dimness. After a quick install of the tuner and video recording application suite, and a day-long scramble to buy a coax cable, cable splitter, and an audio cable to go between video card and sound card, I finally had suitable cable television in my own bedroom. And it was good.

These events laid the groundwork and set the reverberation pattern for what was next. After several days of “tuning in and dropping out”, spending the evening watching television instead of chatting (as is my idiom) on IRC, the sequence continued on to something which galvanized me, opened my eyes, and gave me a new outlook on things.

It was a Friday night. Typically, I would’ve spent the evening with my IRC friends at Flightpath, sitting around being bored while we all poked at our laptops. That night, the disinterest was too great and I decided to give that plan a pass when my friend and coworker invited me to join him, his girlfriend, and some other mutual friends at Spiderhouse for coffee and chatter. I was game for it and wanted to go. When I got home from work, I unwound with the standard amount of channel-surfing while I cooled my heals. It was in that surfing that I remembered a very important event was to happen that night, and that it was a requirement for me to watch. So that night, two weeks ago, I stayed home and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games.

There is something you must understand about me. When I was a youth, I made my life centered around activities that involved large groups of people, swarms. Youth conferences, youth camps, church groups, youth group outings, school football games, pep rallies, revivals, the works. I gave myself to situations like that, not just for the one-on-one interaction with strangers, but to be part of the mosh if you will. To lose myself in the whole, to be overwhelmed.

Now here I am, a mild 14 years later. I’m older, quieter, a staunch individualist. I’m typically no longer given to doing group things. For the most part, the world at large be damned; I’ll stand with my fist clenched and do my own thing. I’ve become learned enough to understand now, in this age of mine, that the “movement of the Holy Spirit” I felt those many years ago in all those youth conferences, prayer meetings, revivals, was little more than the overwhelming sensation of joining something larger than myself. A neurological, neurochemical process. The ruse is now shown for what it was.

After stripping down the facade of that, after removing the religious overtones, I now see what it was that I felt, and I acknowledge that I, still, am weak to the power of Many. I still have the heart to join with strangers for something bigger, something greater than me, greater than us. And, to me, the Olympics is one of few things still worthy enough for that kind of social junction. There is nothing higher.

So I watched the ceremonies. I watched the faceless audience. I saw the crowds, I witnessed the art, the pageantry, the symbolism of the ceremony. I counted each country that entered the arena during the Parade of Nations, saw their flags, their outfits, their proud representation for their home lands. And I absorbed every bit of this and wept. I wept that I was witnessing something that was really happening. I wept that I was part of that moment. I wept that history was happening, and that all I could do was watch and be overwhelmed while sitting in my bedroom half a world away.

It was after that experience I realized that all the things in my life that were big pains, huge troubles, everpresent hassles were nothing. I was set straight again, my perspective readjusted. All those little problems I had to deal with, the interpersonal tug of war, the bickering, the backstabbing, the worries about who said what and why, they became meaningless, useless, expendable. It was after a day or so of careful consideration that I quietly parted from the main IRC channel I was member of and walked away. Every argument and snide comment was washed away. Replaced. Upgraded. I walked away. There are too many people in this world to end up wasting time, heart, and tears on a small few who return so little.

I just quietly walked away.

So during the next two weeks, the Olympic competitions continued; our American teams won medal after medal; around 104 medals in all for us. Worldwide, there was fierce, passionate, astounding competition; an Olympian mountain of sportsmanship, peace, and cooperation between athletes from every country. Peace. I smiled and wept that life could be so good, and smiled that it indeed could be. I wept that I had wasted most of the past nine months pursuing the friendship of those who I ran with only to be returned with heartache, tension, and little good reward. And I smiled that I had removed it from my life, that I had lightened my load and lightened my heart. I wept that it took a total of thirteen days before anyone in that group bothered to contact me to see if I was OK. And now I smile to say that I am perfectly OK, and happy to rejoin the world and my previous and varied sets of friends in their endeavors.

A few nights ago, I watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympic games. I was sad and felt a cold emptiness about the closing of the events, but there was something underscoring that sadness: I felt hope because the event happened in the first place and that I, in my newfound happiness and in my own little way, got to be a part of the crowd again. The ceremony was a grand party for everyone at the arena and abroad, and I watched it all through my tears of joy. I’m different now; the touch has changed me. The long sequence of happenstance that brought me here has brought me to the world as it is now, as I see it now. I still am the individualist that won’t get a LiveJournal account simply because “everyone else has one”, but I (at least for this duration) have less trouble with the idea of going outside of my own track to see something new. Even if it means by doing the expected and the usual and going alone.

There’s a quickness in my pace and lightness in my step; the lightness is my loss of burden by the roadside, and the quickness is the pair of winged sandals on loan to me by Hermes, the god of Marathon.

Stagnation.

I’ve been a little twisted up inside of late. Holding a lot of stuff back. Suppose it’s for the best. Dunno. Verdict’s still out.

Let’s start with the inane:

I bought a new computer keyboard. The old one was four years old, and after the two hours of cleaning I did on it last Saturday, it was less a rubber membrane and the key action went from bad to very rough. I got seriously tired of having to communicate through keys that didn’t want to go down. With the anger I was feeling over the last weekend, not being able to express it added fuel to the fire. So Tuesday I bought a new keyboard, and I’m so loving it. Typing is a pleasure. A finger orgy. Party at the computer.

I bought a wireless access point for the apartment a week ago. Got it configured with encryption (weak, as it were) and access control. Got my laptop to work with it, and my roomate bought a wireless card for his laptop so he could take advantage of it as well. We’re all configured now. Everyone happy. Party in the street.

Remember the journal entry I made a few months back listing people I went to college with? One of them randomly emailed me last weekend with my message gateway. It was excellent to hear from her. She said that she was looking up some data on her family history, and her full name appeared. She followed the link to my site, and was astonished to hear her nickname. See, that’s exactly why I made that entry. I banked on the gamble that someone from that list, some how some way would search for their name and find that entry and the message to them. And it worked. We’re emailing each other, catching up. Is good. Party in the email client.

Work is picking up, slowly but surely. I’m still not so happy with the job, but it’s work, it’s a steady paycheck, it’s security, it’s something to get me away from the drama that follows me. Tomorrow looks to be a busy day, which is completely within the Friday idiom. Much happiness. A party in the bindery room.

‘Scuse me, but I really like Digital Gunfire. You don’t like industrial music? You can suck it. Wait, you do? Go there. Love it. Caress it. Put it in vinyl and whip it. It’s your choice. Party in the dungeon.

I made some strides with one of my ongoing programming projects last weekend. It works. I’m happy. Party in the login script.

Maybe this weekend will be less, um, shitty. Party in your pants.

If anyone has been wondering, I have been going through some pretty drastic changes lately. I won’t go into detail, but the changes are deep, far-reaching, and life-changing. And I’m not at all in a good mood. And I’m not dealing well with the world. And I won’t be a part of the world for a while because:

I hate people.

As much as I love them, as much as I need them in my life, right now, I hate almost everyone. It’s bothersome to keep up with them. Too much effort to listen, to keep in touch, to pay attention, to chase them. I don’t get it. Can’t get it. Can’t get all the information, the data, to keep up. In the broad sense of things, I’ve reached sensory overload. I had to leave Mojo’s earlier because it was too crowded, too noisy, too irritating. Too many people, not enough me.

I hate people.

Something happened in my head about three weeks ago, and I can’t pin it down. It just went *click* and suddenly I’m testy, disinterested, short-tempered, unhappy, uncaring. I don’t get it. I want to care, I want to be happy, but it’s just not working. I don’t want to look at anyone, especially in the face, the eyes. I tend to look away when I talk to someone. Don’t want to connect. As much as I want the community of people around me, I don’t want anything to do with them. Don’t want to expose myself. Don’t want to trust. Not anymore. Not now.

I hate people.

There’s a behavior that happens in the animal kingdom. It exhibits itself in herds, schools, flocks. The sick animal tends to distance itself from the group. One theory is that this helps to protect the group, with the animal thinking of the group at large. Perhaps. Would fit in-line with most behavioral evolutionists. I have a different idea on it, though. Again, Richard Dawkins, father of the “selfish gene” theory, puts forth a better idea, and my take on it is this: the energy spent by the animal to keep appearing healthy and sexually fit, worthy of being socially viable, in-step with the group, would take energy away from getting well. To keep itself alive, it pulls away. This is the first time I’ve considered this, and it makes so much sense. And this behavior is not unique to the “lower species”, but to us, to me, as well. So therefore:

I hate people.

If I don’t make any special effort to contact you, or spend time with you, or make my way over to greet you, don’t take it personally. Do not take it personally. I hate you too.

I knew you would understand.

Good. Journal engine works. Works well. Good.

I’m up here at Mojo’s, per my usual. Sitting and not doing much while my laptop is in front of me. What am I doing? Chatting with the people who aren’t here instead of the people who are, and closing everyone out with headphones. This is an odd turn of events. And I’m not even working on program code.

Shawn the Antisocial

So, ok, it’s time to pick back up with my website engine. Really is. I had some forward momentum going before I got my laptop and began work on the journal engine. With one new-year’s resolution down, I have 3 more to go. My website engine is one of them.

Man, the laughter and joy around me is astounding. Perhaps I should join them, eh? Hmm.

Ah, here’s a quote my friend Rachel sent me:

“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, The Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the US of arrogance, and Germany doesn’t want to go to war.”

Shalom.