stevengharms

I think Ryan and I must be on a similar wavelength lately as I too was thinking the exact same thing as him: I am thankful to not have come of age in an era where the internet’s depthless hard drives could store my equally depthless teenage narcissism or youthful folly for-ever. You can read Ryan’s take here.

As an early (may I say that?) adopter in the general populace (1994, dial up Unix shell on a SCO-V UNIX) of the Internet, I didn’t get off scot-free. Thanks to BBS’ and Usenet, I managed to write some pretty inane things (e.g. “Are you excited about Mike Modano and the Dallas Stars?”) and various comments of the form “Gillian Anderson is the most beautiful woman in the world!”). Thankfully these comments were widely spread, private (in the case of BBS’), and untraceable (in the case of Usenet).

Unlike what faces modern youth, my revelations of crushes, breakups, or photographs of humiliating pass-outs are not recorded, displayed, and / or, as in the case of particularly recirculation-worthy errors, spread globally with witty, degrading commentary added in sans-serif fonts. It seems that the internet has forgotten the essential truth of being young: as youths we fuck up. For a taste (possibly not-safe for work), consider Late Night Mistakes.

To say “fuck up” may seem a discordant note in an otherwise slightly-more-highly-minded essay, but I think “fucking up” is exactly what youths do. It’s not that the young “err,” implying a sense of understanding cause and the full length of effect and they do the wrong thing. No, rather they fuck up. They leave mowers in the rain, crash cars, text and drive¹, and run out of gas.

When you ask them why they did (or did not do) what ought have been done, they often have no answer because, research shows, their brain is not fully wired up yet; in case you missed that, they literally do not know. It’s all the free will of an adult without the experience to see final consequences all while being divorced from the motivation. It’s asking for chess, a game of evaluating predicted long-term outcomes, from a Candy Land player (“I go to the green square now!”).² This implies to me not that they chose to do the wrong thing, but that they simply fucked up. Incidentally, to me this seems the game of parenting: molding kids by providing rote maxims while hoping your kids don’t fuck up unto death before they can start making sense of the world as an adult.

When young the brain is not fully developed, the risk-evaluation cortices are immature and fucking-up occurs. Surely at the age of 25 everyone wishes the option to have a wipe-out, a quashing on mention of the fuck-ups in the previous 25 years. To remember the moments of burning humiliation, despair, isolation, and cruelty are the moments that forge our characters, but it’s nice to know they live back there away from quotidian existence. To feel that bitter flush in our temples and ears when the memories come back too clearly is our private boon, a spur to the right, or a sword-wielding, flaming angel warning off from the wrong path. Is it fair that my private character-forming experiences may be commandeered for sport, or that my lessons sans context are found later? In my generation that was not possible, for today’s it may be impossible to avoid. You know your errors will be documented by a dozen cell-phones, be spread like spilled quicksilver, and will live forever.

For me there is another concern. Not only does the burn of shame endure from moment of fuck-up unto the end of the electronic society, but knowing of the deathlessness of modern error, there will be a chilling effect on the healthy experimentation befitting to this time of life. To be clear, there are fuck-ups, but there are also experiments. Admittedly, sometimes that line is fuzzy, I grant. But if one is afraid to attempt an experiment for fear of it it being wrong and then having it recorded and disseminated as a fuck-up, then some wonderful people will not realize their full, true identity. It’s a pre-emptive shove to keep your exploration about your identity in the closet against the master paradigm. And note, I’m not strictly talking sexual identity, I’m talking about loving cello, being devout Muslim, being an atheist, struggling to be a poet. There’s a chilling effect as we see how deathless media can haunt you forever.

Imagine:

…High on hormones and ill-gained vodka, in a music-thrumming bedroom where the room spins red as her lips careen into her best friend’s… hours later her friend crushes her heart and her weeks of angst by publicly blabbing about the “lez shit” that her friend pulled….³
…The humiliating break-up from something you might work…hours later you have to endure a grilling via dozens of text messages…
…That Goth phase….

To remember and laugh, to move on, to accept is a blessing of aging, but to have it indelibly etched in so many 1’s and 0’s for eternal sport and to know that this is the case could make anyone run from seeing something as a folly of youth or an experiment and turn it into something, quite possibly, not worth living through and past.

The time is, sadly, inevitably coming (has already come?) where the Internet’s perfect, inhuman, and inhumane memory will drive a beautiful life to end itself. Perhaps I can take a page from Dan Savage in preëmption: “For those who have embarrassed themselves on the Internet, it gets better. No matter how bad it gets, we’re born naked, we die with little control over our bodies, you will do well sometimes and poorly others, you will rue and relish alike, and everyone is a fool in love. Try to be honest, nice, and respectful to others, especially those you share your secrets and bodies with. And lastly cut yourself and everyone else a little slack. Be that voice of conscience that doesn’t relish the safe, mean blanket of schadenfreude over the beautiful quilt of friendship.”

Whatever evidence is left, you are more than the sum of your experiences and their record.

Notes:

1. I’d almost rather give a teen a beer than a phone before putting him/her on the road
2. Obviously this varies by individual, so yes, there will be some teens who know more about electrical engineering by 16 than I ever will.
3. Times being what they are, this situation may now be a bragging point.

I’m learning golf.

I’m also learning tango.

It’s fascinating that both of them have, at heart, the creation of a coil via twisting. Lindy Hop is much more focused on creating springy compression, but coil isn’t something I often did (was I doing it wrong?).

Golf’s coil is the famous backswing. You guide that left arm backward and around as your torso coils above your waist. Then the release: the torso swings forward, the arms follow, the wrists propel and the follow through digs the ball up and into the air (when you do it right).

Tango coils in its most basic pattern. You step back and pull the lady close. You step left and bound her by coiling to the left, you keep her coil bound by sliding your right foot to the outside of her, and hold the tension one more step with the left. You shift your weight and release the coil, her legs cross into the famous tango step of the same name. And then a slow, careful box step unwinds (yep, it’s a sexy dance).

I see coils all around.

Items of Interest:

I.

This weekend I finished the hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I bought it a CostCo for eight dollars. It’s a cartoon + diary written by an average Junior High kid who manages to capture the humiliating, elating, confusing, and baffling experience that society inflicts upon youth: Jr. High. Much like “Freaks and Geeks”, “Diary” hits a little too close to home a little too often to have left me without a few “squirmy” moments, but it was tender, never-patronizing, and rather funny.

I mean seriously, I have never met anyone who said of Junior High, “Wow, those were the greatest days ever”. It’s like there’s some sort of social amnesia that kicks in around 16 such that, some decades later, adults can consent to inflect said aforementioned Hell upon their own children.

II. I had my first tutoring session for the GRE. I have a lot of work to do to get to the score I want.

III. I am doing my first day of volunteering at the Texas Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic. In these first few sessions I have to get the hang of the system and process: after that I am eligible to do a voice audition.

IV. I finally finished Gaiman’s Sandman Volume 9: “The Kindly Ones” collection. I’ve really been avoiding this one because of where the story arc was going. Nevertheless Gaiman is very conscious of the story threads that have been introduced in the previous 8 volumes and makes use of characters and insights that you should remember from the very earliest threads.

In this, due to a primeval crime, Dream is hounded by the Eumendies and the domino effects of revenge are explored.

Preludes and Nocturnes remains my favorite, ( thank you Tim ) from my Senior Year Creative Writing class.

V. Lauren has a huge spider bite on her leg. Steroids and Benadryl have been deployed and she’s responding well.

VI. Starting 7th month of dancing!

Friday afternoon I made a visit to my alma mater to participate in a symposium in concert with the School of Business on the status of their MIS curriculum.

First, let me say that I was very impressed with my graduating program’s status. While most MIS programs in this nation are flat to down, UT’s is sharply up. It’s definitely thanks to some hard work by the faculty and administration there. It’s also an effect of the hard work of research staff who now are gladly working with incoming business school students to establish the passion for seeing IT as a business value proposition, versus a mere cost center.

After said event, my girl came to meet me downtown and I thought that it would be a great night to have a proper “date calibre” dinner out. We headed over to Vespaio on South Congress. Vespaio is the grand dame on the S. Congress strip with respect to “fine dining” and we had, as yet, not eaten there since we visited.

The food was quite good: I had a cioppino while my shellfish-allergic girlfriend had a creamy pasta with chicken. This plus two glasses of wine and I would say that the meal was a success. I don’t think it would be too improper to say that the meal for two was over 100 dollars but less than 150, all told.

But…then I realized that meal was a 2 tanks of gas for a great many people.

Bus. Pass.

During SXSW my house-guest, wired up on too much of the highest points of the Web 2.0 society and jet-lag, graciously headed over to Wal-Mart to buy some basics as his luggage had gotten misplaced by American Airlines; one’s pickings are slim, mind you, at 3 in the morning.

Part of the booty that was left behind by said guest was an exemplar of the all in one coffee-making cup. Being a daring sort, I drank it upon his departure.

The first element to note is that this thing is heavy: comaprable to a Slim Fast can in density. You might be needing a trip to the ER were this thing to fall an your foot.

Speaking of slim fast, the preserved coffee herein tastes reminiscent of the “low fat shake” icon.

The real magic ( or science ) of the device is that by puncturing some liquid bladder on the bottom ( I can feel your desire growing here ) you begin an exothermic chemical reaction that warms your slim-fast coffee right up. I admit it, I drank it, and it was about as good as the stuff in my office break-room.

But what really struck me is that the thing was still tarsal-damagingly heavy after consumption of the liquid payload. I have checked out their site which re-assures me that our reaction only produces natural bi-products [sic].

I just hope everyone drinking these is putting them in the recycling bins.

I found a dissection of a out-of-date can can as well.

I take my final in Trigonometry this afternoon.

I’ve got a rendezvous with Blue Moon Wheat Ale and disc II of Ergo Proxy around 1900 this evening.

We live in a woodsy part of Texas which means that the out-of-doors is warm, humid, grassy, with thick shaded forests where flora can decay and be consumed by insects and whatnot. This creates near legendary swarms of mosiquitoes in the summer, and provides a home to a great many arthropods that break down dead organic matter and help the cycle of life continue.

As such, it’s not entirely unusual for one of these creatures to permeate the illusion of the hermetically-sealed home and lo, there is a bug.

When encountering such a bug a human can ask, “Shall I dispatch this small, yet alive bit of matter, animated by forces unknown or shall I do something else with it like dress it like Carmen Miranda and play showtunes or, perhaps, return it to the great out-of doors.

Oftentimes when coming across a “roly-poly” I will take an extra moment, scoop it up in its defensive ball form and return it to the nearby garden. I wish it well on its way. I hear the great chimes of Lhasa toll for me and the name avalokitesvhara whispers on the wind. Lauren says “That’s very Buddhist of you”.

But last night as I wandered into bathroom I noticed an insufficiently cute Symphylian of some sort scurrying across the floor. In a moment I grabbed a copy of Vanity Fair and with the full fury of 18-th century Johnathan Edwards’ Puritan God, struck out at that interloper, tossing a brick through the delicate gossamer web that suspends the lives of all sinners and arthropods over a firey Hell.

Although I feel bad that as I turned him to a shade the last thing he saw was the forced, painfully-cool smirk of Shia LaBoeuf. The perfume girl ad on the back was much more pleasant.

What? How am I now paying 17% more on my monthly note? Surely those dancing cowboy ad people wouldn’t have oversold me on my dreams by making cheap money possible today all the while plotting that I would have to owe dramatically but years later?

I mean, all reputable lenders use cheap gimmicky ads to draw you to a responsible lending institution that will help you chart a financially prudent course to home-ownership.

In the meantime I pay rent, until…

I was discussing this post from yesterday with Lauren and Kerbey Lane ( Eggs, Biscuits & Gravy, you know it’s good for the soul ) and was recalling this particular section.

I think this phrase, quite like no other, is a shibboleth of “I went to a university and got a degree of consequence” . Ironically, it is usually the people who adopted the shibboleth for exactly that reason, who most misuse it, leaving your fry cook’s teeth it ill-repair owing to the induced gnashing.

The discussion went something like this:

Lauren: So you wrote that people use “beg the question” as a shibbloleth of having had “higher education”. Me: Yes. Lauren: But that you know the word “shibboleth” is a shibboleth of that selfsame phenomenon: “I have higher education and am using a word for its shibbolethic power.” Me: Yes, and because the meaning of shibboleth is appropriate to use to describe the phenomenon.

I could be off in my count, but that’s a triple-irony-count discourse score.

She asked if I could count on my readers ( all 4 of you ) to correctly discern the weird subtlety afoot. If you did, you think I’m ridiculously ham-handed. If not, you may still think I’m ham-handed, but you may think that I was making a very inane joke.

Hello there readers, this is just to let you know that my baby and I are making it through these wintry days in central Texas just fine. Saturday night we were over chez League having a charming evening and there was some discussion about sleet, ice, and snow.

With the 4x4 in place, we made it back home, feeling rather ho-hum about the affair.

We re-rendezvous’d with The League and Mrs. League at Alamo Drafthouse South to catch the fantastic Pan’s Labyrinth. As we exited from the 4:30 showing close to 7:00 the winds were strong, the rains icy, and it was generally not fun to be outside.

We headed to the local grocery store and, I kid you not, everything was picked over. I hadn’t seen the shelves so bare since the Safeway strike in California. It looked like the final days before a hurricane’s landfall. We ultimately decided to brave the rain and get a few days’ of provisions from another grocer. Thus we retired on Sunday evening.

Today we’ve not been outside. Well, actually, this evening we did briefly try it but after Lauren slipped on the steps we decided to head back into our 3rd story lair. Our stairs are now a treacherous, icy death-slide to oblivion ( can you sue a property management company for not sanding your stairs? ).

So, we’ve become shut-ins. I spent this fine holiday doing a bit of Guitar Hero II and catching up on some reading. Lauren, because she so loves her electric blanket doesn’t move more than a few feed away from the outlet at all times.

This evening we were to meet up with my mom and sister for dinner but my car’s glass was iced over and the stairs were all slippery; it just didn’t seem like a good idea to be out and about. Every time I check out the Austin Statesman I see another picture of someone spun-out and wrecked.

The last time I saw conditions in Austin like this was in 1998 when I returned from Christmas break in Houston to Austin in an ice storm. It was crazy. I was going up a ramp into a garage, lost traction, and started to go backwards out into the street. It was a scary experience ( everything was fine ) and I don’t care to repeat it. It’s odd that these things seem to be on a decade-long repeat rate.

Let me re-visit one point above, I really enjoyed Pan’s Labyrith, or si usted habla Español: El Laberinto del Fauno. Imagine the stark, violent, menacing world of Amon Goeth from Schindler’s List on a small mill in the Spanish countryside. This blood-thirsty maniac has acquired a new wife who, by a previous marriage, has an adorable daughter who loves fairy tales. This girl, Ofelia by name, envisions a rich fantasy world where she can while away the hellish hours as Stepdad from hell tortures, maims, shoots, and searches for anti-Francoist elements. And what of this fantasy world? It’s impeccably created, beautiful animatronics, characters, tasks and quests, all which help our heroine discover her true identity: a princess that wandered away from the immortal kingdom buried beneath the earth.

It’s a rich tapestry and is altogether a fine film. If it’s showing in your locality I recommend it to you.

It was actually reading back-story on the Spanish Civil war that whiled away many hours today, it’s a large and ill-understood episode.

This evening, after dinner, Lauren and I gave a watch to our friend Jim Dedman’s movie: Pleadings. I must say that my friend, and former editorial reviewer, has written a compelling independent film that had us really not liking some characters, feeling a lot of pathos for others, and interested through to the end.

Tomorrow is my first day back to work since the holiday and my Java class ( which I rather enjoyed, and am excited to put into practice ). I’ll be working from home because there was, just today, a 5-car pile-up right at my exit. I’ll hold out on the VPN until things get a bit warmer.

Tomorrow was also supposed to be my first day of classes at ACC, but due to inclement weather they’ve opted for a no-class day.