Second Homes.

Let me put this plainly, I have a hard time posting something like this. It's far more personal than my usual thing. It's also not the kind of writing I usually do at all. It's very honest and rather sentimental. I'm pretty sure I don't usually like things of that sort. I don't usually like things written by me so much either, so this little composition had a lot going against it.

I'm stoking a flame, because I've been writing more lately, and I'm quite happy about that. Part of the idea here is that this is something that I may contribute to Evan's Zine. I'd like feedback, because this might be a draft I'll change before I tell Evan to use it if she likes it. Anyhow, it's a short, personal piece:


Second Homes.

When I get busy, one of my biggest regrets is that I get what I can call (for lack of a better word) homesick. I don't mean for where I grew up, or for my family's house or anything like that. I don't mean for my own apartment, fortunately, I still see that a lot. I mean for my second home. I usually have one, at least. I know where mine is now. I know where it was last year. I can recall, if I try where my second home was, when I had one, all the way back since I was a kid.

You know what I'm talking about. The place where you spend that much time. I know it's actually someone else's home. They know too. They call me their roommate. I've cooked and cleaned there. I have kramer rights to slide through their door and walk to the fridge. Or shower for that matter.

It was a lot like that last year, with different people. I remember when it was my the dorm room where my friends Kevin and Dan stayed. I remember when it was Billy's or Jon's house when I was an adolescent. And I remember times, recent or when I was growing up, that I didn't have one.

I floated from floor to floor when I first got to college. Room to room, environment to environment before I found the place that was the second home. We could always be found there at eleven at night ... doing homework, or just messing around. I wasn't the only one there, and at about eleven everyone of us was: The Eleven O'Clock Rush was what Kevin called it, usually as a complaint. About this time we'd all go for a cigarette and when it all ended, I think we all missed it.

It was a part of who I was, and my friends shared it. I think I remember what each of these places were like well, and it makes me remember myself. My second home was sometimes academic, sometimes it was angsty, sometimes it was all punk, or sometimes it was indulgent, or creative, or very personal and comfortable. I know that I chose to spend time, feeling at home in each of these places. I remember starting to feel less at home, a sort of loneliness. That was as valuable, I think, as finding a home.

We choose our friends and our second homes. Its an over-simplification to say it, but it's choosing our surroundings. Its part of who we are, or it is for me. I think I can say I understand myself more with understanding my surroundings. I think its useful for me to understand myself like this.

What can we say without that?

--Michael.

My Reading List

So I'm pretty excited about some of the books I've gotten recently, here's a rundown:

The Mind's I by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. This is a collection of relevant essays, dialogues, short stories, creative fiction and non-fiction all about personal identity and philosophy of mind. Philosophy of mind and brain, reductionism, holism, computer intelligence, sense of self, etc. Really cool stuff, all with reflections by each of the authors and collectors. I read one chapter and I was hooked, the table of contents was impressive and intriguing, and the authors are both writers I've meant to read more of since I found them each in high school... or my freshman year in college at the latest.

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. From what I've read I can only reaffirm this books place as a key work in 20th century continental philosophy and the history of 2oth century thought. Also appears to be an amazingly well put piece of feminist literature. To those who know me, my interests in feminism have only been growing. Thanks to Morgan for this one. She gave it to me, and its with her that I would most like to share what I find in it and discuss it.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. A piece of what looks like light scifi, but is full of great ideas from the description. It was made into two movies, one of which is higly respect. Just a quick note on this aspect of it: why is it, if there's a highly produced hollywood film of a not so well known book I have to buy a copy of the book with a screenshot of the movie on it. I really don't want to have George Clooney Making out with some Star I don't recognize on the front of a novel neither had anything to do with, and nor did twentieth century fox.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. This one's right up my alley. Just the kinda thing I'm a fan of: thick modernist prose with ideas and potential for great interpretation. I hear it's beautiful, I can't wait to get to it. Thanks to Philipp for this one. I hope the guy enjoyed his time in Chicago. Fantastic person, that one. I intend to discuss this with him sometime, if by letter.


I'm also still reading Underworld, and I've loved the first half of it but put it down for a while. I'll go through all of these slow with school and readings for school on top f it. I may be able to post to my blog from work (like now) but I can't read a novel so easily. I'll post my thoughts on eah of them as I finish them. You can expect this in just a week or two for Solaris. The thing is thin.

Some things seriously need to be said about work

All right folks, some half important background:

I work, for now, a standard 40 hour job. I work at a company's corporate headquarters. I work in the technology industry, for a .com doing unix system administration work. I work until 1AM; just two hours of my ten hour days are during standard business times. Things like dress code here are lax. Use of language, in the environment I work in is not particularly regulated. You can say "fuck" all you like at 7PM on a monday, nobody will blink. My supervisors (shift leads) and my boss do so. My boss's boss's boss will do so in our presence. I think that's two steps down from executive level, plus or minus one. Also, though we are "skilled workers," we're some of the lowest in hierarchy and pay within the company: we are an essential team to keep our sites (the entire business) running, but it is work akin to mechanics in the industry. We've been called that. Data mechanics. Server monkeys. Network firefighters (though that one sounds cool). like typical mechanics, you don't typically have to worry about offending anyone or being a little rough. There's absolutely no dress code.

Obviously, this should not mean whatever we say will be acceptable. I'm sure racial slang would not go over well, for a simple example. This is as it should be. Some things, like hateful discrimination, should remain unacceptable in work environments. one way or another though, since we all know our direct co-workers on such a friendly basis here, it becomes the norm to be... well, a little normative. To jibe and criticize. I have painted nails at the moment. The left hand black, the right hand white. I was asked about this by a laughing coworker, and I made up an excuse. It was stupid, and I shouldn't have felt the need. Somehow, since the me they know is different, I felt like I shouldn't reveal something else. But if I were openly gay, queer, or transgendered, no one would ask me questions about it. It happens a respected application engineer (higher end, more skilled work than ours) is transgendered. Here's thee issue I have with this, it isn't that people of "alternative lifestyles" (a term I have an issue with, but seems used in the corporate world as if some sort of euphemism or category were necessary) have some extended ability to express, it is that social norms here are strong enough that I believe they've just revealed that they don't accept and openly judge those who do not fall in line with them, though will supress their judgments to some people. I think it's pretty shitty that these guys are willing to show they think its wrong to do something like that, and are probably more unaccepting than they come across to other employees.

Lets look at another issue. Someone brings up Dane Cooke. I mention that he loses points with me because of the message he spreads. When I was asked further I said two things, he's dumb-macho, and he's an anti-feminist misogynist. A shift lead says something like "what's wrong with that, he's a comedian?" The Coworker who started this said that I was a feminist. My shift lead shakes his head and laughs. He tells me there are plenty of good reasons to be an anti-feminist. Like obesity and children's grades, because a decline in those is a result of feminism. I look at him and say fuck off. He laughs. I tell him to go fuck himself, I will not be laughed at. I will not have this discussion. It was a quiet next couple hours. I had the "I'll go to HR" look in my eyes, I guess.

To me, this was like him saying: "There are plenty of reasons to be against equal rights." If this referred to race he would have been afraid to oppose me for a second. Why different when we're asked about sexism? Because that's what this is. I'm a feminist because society is still inherently (patriarchally) sexist. Otherwise I would only be a humanist. Right now, part of humanism is feminism. I think it's discouraged in society because it's unmanly. I think that's bullshit.

That's all I've got to say for now.

In Memory of A Postmodernist I Still Need to Read (and other musings on the recently past weekend)

I went to see the neo-futurists this weekend as they did one of their performances of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. It was fantastic, and I'll get back to it later in that portion, but I'd first like to reflect on just one of the thirty "plays" I saw there.

Writers Writing About Writers 2.0 was a short sketch where three neo-futurists sat at desks in front of the audience with yellow legal pads and composition notebooks. Another neo-futurist is at a blackboard. The voiceover narrator explains that they'll each write down the initials and date of death of the author on legal pad. These are taped to the board by the last of these. "William Butler Yeats, died January 28th 1939" (an important thing to note also is that I'm using Yeats as a filler, I can't remember who was first and I think it was a modernist poet) its almost shouted "C. S. Lewis, died November 22nd 1963" an interesting choice, later revelations may have elucidated why it might have been used "Kurt Vonnegut, died April 11th 2007" I winced, remembering hearing of his death. The voiceover narration continued, and it was a nice little sketch, very short. I noticed four and not three pieces of paper were taped to the blackboard. After the show I walked up to the blackboard and saw the pieces of paper with WBY 1/28/1939, CSL 11/22/1963 and KV 4/11/2007 and the one last one DFW 9/12/2008. I recalled that it was currently 9/13. I could only think of one writer DFW: David Foster Wallace. Had he died?

A side note on my at-least-weekly ritual: Recent Deaths. I check Wikipedia and find out who died. There are reasons for this, like my assumption that Studs Terkel's or Don DeLillo's death will go by unnoticed by major media, yet I'd want to know about it. I feel that's part of what our intimacy with authors, musicians and artists of our time involves. Part of it is I think an obsession with how much goes by me, how many influential people of whom I've never heard. Those are a couple of the main reasons. There must be more, and I even probably know what a couple of them are.

This time it was different. It was an author I knew about, and had been connected to my favorites, but I hadn't read anything but an article or two of his. He satconstantly on the book shelf of my mind waiting for me to get to him. Rest in Peace, DFW. I wish I'd gotten to know you before your untimely death. Maybe someday I'll know David Foster Wallace. Maybe I'll understand the suicide then. I know the concepts by which he wrote have always interested me. Sooner or later, I'll read Infinite Jest.

Now on the rest of the show. First of all, it has my full approval. That means if you're in Chicago and haven't seen it, I really reccomend going to a show. It's worth th seven plus roll of a die dollars you pay for a ticket, on average the cost of a movie on a weekend night. And it's typically more illuminating, every bit as enjoyable, far less reproduceable. I laughed at the comedy, respected all the performances, and saw some very cool ideas. It's very genuine: it isn't Shakespeare but it's local art of our times, and it isn't lacking. I'm definitely a fan. There were some great highlights in all genres of contemporary conceptual theatre. I can think of nobody I know who wouldn't have a good time. True, I could also probably find some major points to criticize in their performance, but it isn't my goal here.

I was planning on writing a little about what I'm up to besides, and some books, but I'd like to make sure this gets posted. However, one thing I will include is that Cory Doctorow has written a pretty nice collection of essays I've been working through called Content. It's Doctorow, so it's Creative Commons and therefore free for download. Here's a link:
http://craphound.com/content/

You might get a more extended report later.

What's with the sobriety thing? And bike rides.

For those of you who have not heard, I'm a teetotaling non-smoker this month. For all of September. The last time I had a drink was August 30th, and the last time I had a cigarette was fifteen minutes before 12:00 AM September first. This is about a week of non-smoking and no alcohol. It extends further than this by a little, I'm not drinking any pop-type beverages this month -- I didn't drink many in the first place, but they are free at work. I'm also cutting down dramatically on how much meat I eat. These last two are probably permanent or close to it. (I might write about the meat one later, in a different blog post.)

Here's your explanation:
I don't plan on permanently quitting drinking or smoking. I might quit smoking, and it's pretty highly likely I'll cut back (I intend to do so, come October). The fact is I needed to know I could do it, and I couldn't justify my smoking to myself by saying I liked it without actually knowing that this was the case -- which meant examining it with my mind free from the perhaps subconscious influence of chemical addiction. There's also the matter of knowing I could do it if necessary. I'll say that I could indeed quit smoking if I wanted to, and I'm proving it. A week in now. So far, so good. The chemical addiction isn't really getting to me. I didn't have much in the way of "nic fits" and I'm confident I could quit forever, should I decide to do so at some point. I wanted to do this with the quit drinking thing (there's also a pact involved in that with Morgan, Evan, and Caitlin) as an extra exercise in will power.

I particularly don't think I'll quit drinking for the simple reason that I don't see it as much of a vice in my life. I like a good beer, wine, or whiskey. I don't get drunk often. It's been quite a long time since I have been. The reason behind this is simply that I think it's good to exercise my willpower in multiple ways, and I think social drinking is a touch on the ridiculous side.

To comment on the will power aspect only: if I can't have control over whether or not I have a cigarette or refuse a drink, what can I, really have control over? I believe this kind of affirmation of freedom over our own initial impulses is a very valuable way to reaffirm that we are indeed (in one sense) decision making beings, and not slaves to something we might call beyond ourselves.

Now last thing to anybody who reads this:

If anyone has any interest in a bike ride in the city, I'm going to try to use every possible weekend of the bike friendly season to go on at least one longish bike ride. I'll go alone, but Join me if you like.


I've got some more things to say, but I'm at work.