Ultramundane.com -- It's Just Not Natural.

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United States, California, San Francisco, The Mission, English, Spanish, Casey, Male, 31-35.

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Saturday, April 12, 2003

Wait Five Minutes.

WTF? The forecast is rain through next week. At noon we had thunder and lightning. It's seven now and suddenly I realize my room is very brightly lit. I look over and see this:

And this is the sky at seven at night? Just because we started saving all that daylight doesn't mean we need to use it all at once, OK?

07:40 PM PST (link)

Friday, April 11, 2003

Three Links about Sex.

This video is the reason I can no longer stand to listen to Ravel's Bolero.

Maybe itis time for me to get a cell phone. (Link via the Roommate.)

It never occured to me that Stephen Trask (co-author of Hedwig and the Angry Inch)might be queer. I never even considered it one way or another. I find this odd. I usually assume all creative, handsome men are gay until proven otherwise.

05:29 PM PST (link)

Coffee Spoons.

In high school English we made a bit of fun of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" ("Shall I eat a peach? Out loud?" Well, it was funnier when Patrick Lin said it) but this week I've been in a bit of an existential loop—not a funk, not a sad thing; just a bit contemplative—and have found a bit of resonance in it.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

At 16 I think I was too young to appreciate it, but didn't realize it at the time. I think they call this perspective. I wonder if this means I'm getting a little.

12:01 AM PST (link)

Wednesday, April 9, 2003

Cracked Out.

I was awoken this morning at 9:45 when all of a sudden my alarm didn't go off. I didn't shower or shave, and remarkably it's the latter that bothers me more. I do not come from particularly good stock for beards, which might explain my opposites-attract fascination with men with dark stubble or goatees (or "The Goatee Problem," as I refer to it.) It might take a couple of weeks before people would ask if I was planning to grow a beard. You get the idea.

In any case, today I look merely derelict. I carried the theme with a pair of laundry-day black slacks, and completed the ensemble with a dress shirt with pulled threads in the shoulder. Apparently, I did too good a job dressing down, as I think a passerby just tried to put money in my coffee cup as he passed by.

(Maybe this is instant karma for being so judgemental in my previous post. Who can say. I never did that well in Metaphysics.)

05:23 PM PST (link)

Tuesday, April 8, 2003

The Poop Holds The Tenants Wher They Are.

I've railed on at length about our upstairs neighbors: the screaming and raucous laughter, the loud dropped objects and footfalls, the yelling up to their window ("Throw down my ke-e-e-eys!") instead of using the doorbell, their construction projects at odd hours. We joke that we're just waiting for them to release the roaches. Lately they've been a little better—I guess the landlord got complaints from other neighbors about the smell of their cigarettes and noise. Between them and the laundry room downstairs, we're never at a loss for sound or odor.

Lately there has been something new. I would climb into bed, and hear...The Hum: a low, electric buzz just loud enough to distract me, but not loud enough to pinpoint if it was in, above or below my room. Maybe I was just imagining it? No, this wasn't like my parents' television set which emitted a high piercing whine that only my mother and I could hear; my father thought we were insane. (He's also beginning to get hard of hearing, so there's one answer.)

So I would get up, check that everything in my room was turned off, lie down, get up and check again (because I'm like that), lie back down, hear The Hum. I'd try unlikely solutions (Switch off the USB hub? Turn off the power strip altogether? Press the button on the electric toothbrush?) Lie back down, hear The Hum. Moments of utter stillness in the city are rare enough; now any chance of having one was destroyed by The Hum.

I described the noise to The Roommate. "Vibrator," he suggested. I disagreed. I don't think anyone has that kind of stamina.

Last night as I crawled into bed, bracing myself for it, I noticed it was gone. The Hum had stopped. I was elated. But as I lay there I started to wonder; what the heck was it? And where did it go?

This morning a note written in shaky handwriting and poor spelling appeared on our door describing "a water problem" upstairs, offering to "compinsate" if we had any "innconvienace." They described it as "A lg spill of water in one of the bedrooms."

I seized this like Sherlock Holmes. Buzzing noise, like an electric motor. It stops after a (large) amount of water is lost in a bedroom upstairs. My conclusion? A fishtank with an air filter. If fishy water starts dripping in my bedroom, I'll have proof.

...I don't think I want proof.

06:54 PM PST (link)

Monday, April 7, 2003

Haiku Savings Time.

    sun rises later
    but shines on the hours i sleep.
    daylight loser time.

    the switch this year was
    not that bad; i am only
    fifty minutes late.

    i hope to adjust
    to the new regime of time
    before october.

10:33 AM PST (link)

I'm A Bad Babysitter.

The other thing the Inner Child has been pestering me about is "New Games!" You've got plenty of games you haven't finished yet, I tell it patiently. "New Games! Want Now!" Not to mention all the other things you ought to be doing with yourself like writing email and redesigning your site and designing a few projects for friends and, heck, turning off the computer once in a while. "No! Work Yucky! New Games NOW!" I find that I'm starting to lose patience with myself. Look, will a quick play of the Amplitude demo make you shut up about it for a while? "OK...Mmm...No! Want new games! Like Chris!" I sigh. Chris just had a birthday, that's why he got a new GameCube. You don't need one. "Do Too! Need to play Aminal Crossing!"

Hee, those little animals really are cute...No! Must keep quiet...don't smile...Wait...I'm considering giving digital crack to my Inner Child? Well, yes...I mean, it's on sale. What to do, what to do....I'll play some more Zelda: Oracle of Ages while I decide.

No, this post was not sponsored by Nintendo™.

01:00 AM PST (link)