This Is Not A Pipe

Drawing is stupid.

OK, maybe stupid is the wrong word, in a global sense.  There must have been a point (or a long stretch) in human history where the ability to create two-dimensional line representations of three-dimensional objects seemed nothing short of miraculous.  And that can still be the case.  I’ve stood in front of classrooms full of fidgety schoolchildren who became transfixed, just bowled over by the fact that I could conjure up an army of their favorite cartoon characters with a piece of chalk and a few quick strokes of my arm.  That’s gratifying.

On the other hand, though, here’s a sketch I did sitting at the counter of a diner, while I was waiting for Gloria’s engine to be repaired:

Now, what the hell good is that?   It isn’t a terribly accurate representation of what the cup and saucer and spoon really looked like over those moments (which I guess you’ll just have to take my word for, being as how I was there, and you weren’t.)  It serves as a mnemonic for me of what it was like to sit at that counter at that moment, in front of that cup of coffee, but the greater part of that experience has nothing to do with the drawing (or the coffee) and is not communicated by it in any way:  you can’t divine by looking at that drawing what the smell and taste of the french fries with mayo that were sitting right next to it were like, or how I was starting to feel washed out because I was about to come down with bronchitis, or perceive what the head waitress sounded like bitching out the other waitresses about how the coffee in the pot was too old, or get the general sense of daily life’s minutiae that I did as old men ambled up and took seats on other side of me, placing small variations on the same orders they’d no doubt placed a hundred times before.  You can’t even really tell too much about the objects the drawing is supposed to represent, other than some bare suggestion of their physical arrangement:  whether the cup and saucer were white or beige;  whether the spoon was clean or dirty;  whether the coffee is hot or cold, flavored or not, or if it even is coffee.  If you think you can, it’s because you’re bringing your own experience to it;  reaching into your internal database of coffee-china-warm-beverage-related associations and calling them up in your own head, at the drawing’s instigation.

I can type this:

COFFEE ON A DINER COUNTER

…and it does the same thing.  With the same efficacy.  And that only took me two seconds.  The drawing took 10 minutes.  Maybe more.

—

On the third hand, I kinda dug these creamers:

Therefore, By Implication-

To that great list of Mildly Annoying Truisms, add this:  if anyone stops to compliment me on any aspect of my dress, it is invariably in reference to an item of clothing that was given to me unbidden by someone else.  If they say “nice shoes”, for instance, they are referring to the pair my ex-girlfriend gave me, the ones she got from her friend’s husband, for whom they were one size too big.  If they say “nice tie”, it’s one of the hundreds of ties that used to belong to my father, one that found its way into my closet only because my father is dead and my brother has more ties than he can possibly ever use.  If they say “cool t-shirt”-  and I have a freakin’ lot of T-shirts, including a Hicks County Poultry Fanciers t-shirt, and the Amber Horizons 47 t-shirt I designed myself-  they are commenting on the daruma mask t-shirt that my friend Uriel and his wife brought me as a surprise present from Japan.  Even the network swag my friends drool over finds its way into my possession more or less at random.

I am hoping to mitigate this trend for the space of a day with the new suit I purchased last Saturday.  (I have little patience for listening to members of either sex bitch about how the other has it easier, but I will ungrudgingly concede that when it comes to fashion, men get a walk-   we can wear pretty much the same damn suit to just about any formal occasion, and so long as we keep it clean and replace it once every few years, no one notices or cares.)  Few people who might have the inclination to compliment me on it will actually see it, of course:  the Empress, with whom I am going out to dinner, and my co-workers, who are more likely to notice the sudden, miraculous transformation to formal dress than anything about the suit in particular.

But I’ll know.

Clarity

The moment at which you most need your glasses is…  when you’re looking for them.

Real Life Math Problems

Car A is travelling southwards on a gently curving suburban road, moving at an average speed of 40 miles per hour.  Car B is travelling northwards on the same road, moving at an average speed of 30 miles per hour.  If we consider a portion of the road that is three miles long, and assume for purposes of the problem that the cars are starting at either end of it, already travelling at full speed, at what point on the road will they pass each other?

There’s a Principle in There Somewhere

Jack (eating cereal):  When I run my tongue along the inside of my teeth, it makes it feel really weird.

Ace:  Yeah, it does.  And the more you do it and think about it, the weirder it feels.  And then you keep noticing it all the time.  So I wouldn’t think about it too hard.

Things I’ve Learned From the Internet

No matter what it is that I pursue, someone out there somewhere is pursuing it far more seriously than I ever will.

Best Quotes of the Weekend

“Dad!  Dad!  Tell them the story about the time you destroyed an entire planet! That was so awesome.”

-Jack, to me, during Taco Party Saturday

***

“Opportunity is fifty percent of dinner.”

-me, to Jack, during a discussion of predator/prey relationships

Food for Thought

“We’ve all heard that story about the coach who told each of his players to go out to the woods and bring him back a twig.  When they did, the coach took the twigs and broke one of them to show the players that individually they were weak and could be broken.  Then he bound all the twigs together and showed that he could not break them when they were bound.  This illustrated to the players that if they stuck together as a team, they were strong and no one could break them.  What they forget to tell you is that later that night, as he slept in his bed, that coach was eaten by zombies.”

–The Zen of Zombie:  Better Living Through the Undead, Scott Kenemore

A Man May Do Both

“‘Halflings!’ laughed the rider that stood beside Eomer.  ‘Halflings!  But they are only a little people in old songs and children’s tales out of the North.  Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?’

‘A man may do both,’ said Aragorn.  ‘For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time.  The green earth, say you?  That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!'”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

In a Bacon and Egg Sandwich

… the chicken’s involved, but the pig is committed.

Zen Commuting (State Transit Can Smell Your Fear)

I have been commuting to work for over 15 years now, primarily by bus, and while I have accrued the usual panoply of bizzare stories associated with that activity, the one observation above all others that I have made is this:  no matter what desire you hold in your heart when you approach State Transit, the circumstances thereon will conspire to provide the exact opposite.  If it is important that you be on time, the bus will be late arriving, or the lines out the door.  If you are tired, and are looking forward to sitting down, the woman who cut the line in front of you will get the last seat, and you will have to stand.  If you are sick, and want only for the trip to be as short as it can possibly be, it will rain, and cars will spin out or break down in the Tunnel, and the resultant traffic will make the trip twice as long as usual.  If you are hot and looking forward to the air conditioning, it will be broken, and the bus crowded;  if you are cold and desire only heat, the air will be on, and blasting full tilt.   If you are looking forward to reading the next chapter in your book, the reading lights will be out.  If you have a laptop and want to type, there will be someone sitting next to you, preventing you from getting your arms into the correct position, or the person in front of you (who is invariably 4’2″, and not particularly constrained in any way) will put his seat all the way back, preventing you from opening the screen fully.  Etcetera.

This maxim holds true with such perverse consistency, that in the end, the only way to survive the experience with any kind of sanity intact is simply to let go of all of your expectations whatsoever:  present yourself at the terminal and abide, accepting that whatever happens between there and home is what happens.

That or get an IPod, I guess.

As One Gets Older

… declaring that you’re never going to speak to someone again for the rest of your life becomes a theoretically easier proposition.

That which does not kill me

… is probably setting me up for that which will!