April 15th 2009

Today is cleaning. And today is the weather trying to make up its mind, petels swept under the oven, room temperature rooibus from my expresso machine, dirty towels, too many chemicals, a white cat with matted fur and tired look with gookie eyes, no coins for laundry, Fiona Apple, Boca burger, wondering this and that: my neighbors relationship with his girlfriend, Lia and her blues, my never to put-off-a-project landlord Linda and her tidy yard, the OctoMom. Today is broken blinds and leaving the door open daring a winter breeze to roll in, getting songs stuck in my head, waiting for my sister to call, lots of water down the sink, letters nedding to be sent soon, Doctor Bonners.
There is a baker opening at Great Harvest, perhaps I should fill out an application? Perhaps if I leave the house sometime today I will. Perhaps I will head downtown and run into so-and-so and find myself in a car with the music good and loud and dirty corners and sandbox floors and there will be somewhere else's to be visited. But I will have to leave me house... I promise to be out by 3:00...

Snowball: a Biography

You hear of people who love their animals.
This is not like Snowball and me, we are seasoned, we are familiar. We are like the couple celebrating their 45th annivesary by watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. We express our love my small kisses and polite conversation over breakfast. Snowball is only 5 years younger than me. At the vet last year I was asked to hold Snowball as they anally probed her with a thermometer. As she struggled the vet assistant told her, "it's okay. don't claw mommy."
I am not Snowball's mommy. More her older sister than her Mommy. And plus she tends to me in a way I tend to her.
I got Snowball when I was 5, the third of all my poor cats that got smacked by cars. The last in a series of stupid road loving kittens. "Let her explore the house," I remember by Dad saying softly as Snowball roamed about, a serious kitten from the beginning, analysing her quarry, quickly establishing a safe haven. I took Snowball to the road and told her to not play in it.
Snowball was never a cat for a child. She should of spent her almost two decades as a lap cat for an old woman or man. Not one to connect with children she spent much of her life under the house or sleeping the blackberry bushes beyond our backyard.
During the flood of 94' Snowball was not to be found until days after the flood waters receeded and ten-year-old me called to her from under the house until she crawled out muddy and alive. The waters rose an inch inside the house, soaking the carpets and warping the floors so how she survived under the house escapes me.
When we moved in 1999 we left Snowball. This sounds harsh, but it was really for the best. For three months my family lived in an out of camp grounds and motels, stayed with family members and waited for our house to be finished in Redmond. There was no special luxury for a cat in transit beyond a small dog kennel, so she was left to the blackberry bushes and a kind neighbor who left a bowl out of Alley Cat (a horrible cheap Canadien cat food). However, I came back to get her after we moved in and though now a feral animal, she came to me and cried the entire 3 hour drive to Redmond.
When I lost my job last month Snowball started working the graveyard shift at the Best Western delivering handtowels to guests for 5 cents a day. And I in turn feed her, change her water frequently, and give her pets.
Snowball enjoys being in the bathroom during a shower. It's her spa time. She especially likes to entertain when someone is going to the bathroom.
But, Snowball is getting old. If we do the math, if she is 5 years younger than me that makes her 18 now.
Her nose bleeds, she pukes. You can see her holding it together, holding together her dignity. She is the graceful elderly hostess that parts the crowd to come up to you and hold your hand for a second to say, "welcome" ever so softly, making you realize whether or not you have a good time at this party, whether or not you get what you are looking for, that warm feeling won't leave you.
My Mom tells me when cats get old their fur gets matted because they can no longer maintain themslves
Snowball never holds herself slovenly. She is not the old woman crumpled in a wheel chair, she never will be. She holds a strong posture even though I can tell it makes her tired.
Snowball won't retire. She will always wake up at a reasonable hour and tend to herself, she won't let in indignity of old age make excuses for her. Even while she sleeps all day she does it atop a pillow, curled into a precise tendril, tight and exact. With great manners she perches on the smallest of tops, overlooking windows.
But Snowball is getting old and everyone can tell. I called her "Bony" the other day because her bones are more prominent. My parents told me last year when I took her to the vet for a cough that I shouldn't spend an exhorbent amount of money on her and to "let her go."

The Fluid Shift from Brain to Machine

Kevin showed me this article once, I believe it was in the Sun, which is a damn fine reliable smart magazine. The article was about me, well, it was about my brain. Not really my brain in particular but the brain I have that other people have as well, and that is a brain formed and shaped by computers.

It cited a study where a group of people, one group computer savvy the other non and got them to explore the internet as scientists studied their brain waves. the group more computer literate would predictable flip from screen to screen and the part of the brain illuminated was the decision making part, the frontal cortex and the group without much experience tended to use the part of their brain reserved for learning, for reading and reflecting. After a few days of study the second group developed the same kind of brain responses as the first group, decision-making, browsing rather than reading.

We are needing our brains less and less. The question in the article was, "are computers rewiring our brains?"

As an observer of my own experiences, hell yes. My spelling is shit. When someone asks me a question I think, "where on the internet can I access this information?" rather than racking my brain for the answer.

Once, when I was about eightish I went to Christian church located in a shopping center in Hillsboro close to Skyliner with my friend Holly. When mass started (sorry, I call it mass, old Catholic habit) the kids were sectioned off and divided into their various age category classes. In our class their was lecture about technology and how someday humans will be asked to have computer chips in their brains, and this and that and it wasn't to far in the future but Christians will resist it and protest and they will be persecuted and pressured.

The Christian resistance movement went right over my head as I excitedly imagined the possibilities of having a computer chip in my brain.

"Will I be able to listen to music?" I thought. "Will I be able to write notes to myself in my brain and print them out later for further assessment?" "Will all my memories be stored so I can access them at any time?"

Perhaps we will have computers chips in our brains. What will that mean? What does it mean right now?

My spelling has become shit. I used to laugh inwardly at my coworkers struggling to spell such words as fettucini and even real doozies like "couldn't" and "brain." Now I find myself second guessing some of my spelling. Every time I spell restaurant I have to pause. It's awful. And I write restaurant almost every single day. I got the word "immediately" spelled wrong on an application writing "immediantly." What the hell?

So, this article, it tells us how we assimilate the information that is out there, taking note of it's location on the web rather than storing the information in our brains. We are getting better at finding information than recalling it and I wonder, is this for the best?

My first reaction is to be critical, no it's not good, the internet is not natural, we are tearing ourselves from the raw natural functions of our brains, stripping away the learning part of our experience and getting straight to the quick answer, where to find it. But it's how I have been learning so much from the internet. . .

For instance, I raped wikipedia in my study of the Bosnian War and believe I squeezed every bit of information out of Youtube videos of a BBC2 documentary on Yugoslavia. I could have never got such concise information searching through a book, exploring the internet was like a injection of information straight to the cortex rather than the slow rubbing of ointments (the act of studying) into the skin. It was wonderful and horrible and easy and awesome.

Do you think Montessori thought of the internet when he considered the his method of learning? Where a child is not required to learn anything but explores the world with a guided hand; learning to read books by handling them and wondering about them and having a guide show them what it is? The internet is a grand Montessori school, it a library with the information of the world resting in it, a library the size of a country if we could see it in a tangible form. A library in almost perfect order.

And I am majorly plugged in. I network on all the major networking sites. I even twitter. I even visit second life from time to time (which is really really lame). My brain feels like it is being reprogrammed. I find myself less patient with reading, satisfied with being surrounded by several sources of information rather than reading one single book. The internet is made for me. It doesn't allow me to become bored. It doesn't allow me to lose interest. When I do there is always something else to look at. Some other part of my mind which selfishly wants to get information.

I don't know what to think of the whole mess actually. I like it. I hate it. I could never live without it. I don't want to live without it. What am I missing? What is happening, really?

Writing

My writing hasn't felt very solid lately. That's the word I was looking for. Solid. They don't feel like they have all the pieces I want in them, they don't feel finished. They feel like you could take some and add some and then it would easily not be mine at all. I am writing something very transparent and vague, my pieces are meek, shruggling and excusing themselves on the page, waiting for you to judge them so they have some meaning, because my writing is requiring and shrinking for your judgment.
Okay, so here's the thing I am not telling Kevin right now. I just told him; this and that, I hate my writing, I'm going to burn my zine la la la and he kind of asks why even though he knows I'm just being dramatic.
I'm not telling him I am ashamed of not being marketable.
Kevin is drawing maps right now. I am blogging. We are listening to Tool. It's the new one. I am drinking wine. Kevin is not drinking wine.
"Would you like me to put some water on?"
shrugs, "if you want. I'd like some. I don't want you to stress yourself out about it."
"why would I stress myself out?"
shakes head. inaudible.
"What's that?"
"Just making sure you want it."
"I just wanted to know if you wanted some.."
"Just didn't want you to be that concerened about my well being. It's been awhile since I've drewn, draw. Since I've drawn."
I put on the water. My tea kettle is yellow. I got it last year for my birthday. 22. I always keep it clean. Sometimes, when I do to other people houses and see dirty tea kettles I feel disgusted. Burned tea kettles, oily tea kettles from being next to frying bacon. A real tea drinker has a spotless kettle.
What I really want to know how to do is write. I want to be able to write. Write well. Writers are magic.
Just about anyone can see something happen. They can watch a car wreck with the same passion as watching a basketball game, they can make love the way they would stand in line at the grocery store. But a writer, aa damn good story teller like Lia or my Dad (who, like Homer, never writes their damn stories down) makes that fucking experience real. And I am not that person. I get lost in the WORDS. The damn words. I trip up on them like a spider in its own web. And then I get even more tangled when go back and edit that shit.
What I'm trying to say is, I can't hash it all, but I don't know what to do exactly... writing is me. It's not just what I've defined myself around, it's the thing that forgoes me from food and water. It's the thing that takes me hours away from this world.
Writing. What the hell.

Lack of Entertainment Amenities at the Carman Family Residence

Sure I like coming home. I like that there is food. There is Grocery Outlet wine and domestic brews. There is a gas fireplace, bone dry towels (a true luxury in mold ridden drafty apartments), exercise equipment, and my sister always has good lime tortilla chips. But there is one thing missing, always missing, and sometimes it makes me think twice about coming over.
In my house there are always books and zines in my bathroom. This is not because I take a long time in the bathroom; I eat lots of fiberous foods as well as fruits. But when I step into the bathroom and sit down, I am suddenly overwhelmed with boredom unmatched by anywhere on the entire planet. I mean, when you go for a walk you don't need a magazine, or when you sit down to look at the cars passing by the window you don't need a magazine but for some reason, whenever you sit on the toilet and spend you 20-30 second on the toilet the boredom is so paralyzing.
And no one in the Carman family residence (except Gary in his apartment with) accomadates the serious need for magazines in bathrooms.
For several reasons every bathroom in the world needs reading bits:

• Boredom often turns into depression
• RBBD (Restless Boredom Bowel Disorder) not being able to shit comfortably without reading material, rushing the shit, which leads to hemmroids
  

Pure Gold

If you want to see pure gold, ask Natalie Vieu, she eats pencils and paper and shits out pure gold. I am not kidding. We got together to show each other zines both of us had written for Spring Break. Hers=Amazing.

Ultimatums

Yesterday at Albertson's I found myself facing two ultimatums.

I came to the store to buy chocolate chips; three dollars in cash with a splash of change amounting to 13 cents. But, as I walked by the wine aisle I found a very good deal on a shiraz. What could I choose?

A night of sleepy, bleary eyes inspired debauchery? Or a night of delicious chocolate chips?

I chose the wine.