blog (September, 2002)
Charm and Glamour
The guardian of the lake was a lonely man, the more so because he had a wife. He showed me her picture in a plastic shield in his wallet, a prettyish blonde girl trying her best to live up to the pictures in the magazines, a girl of products, home permanents, shampoos, rinses, skin conditioners. She hated being out in what she called the Sticks, longed for the great and gracious life in Toledo or South Bend. Her only company was found in the shiny pages of Charm and Glamour. Eventually she would sulk her way to success. Her husband would get a job in some great clanging organism of progress, and they would live happily ever after. All this came through in small, oblique spurts in his conversation. She knew exactly what she wanted and he didn't, but his want would ache in him all his life. After he drove away in his jeep I lived his life for him and it put a mist of despair on me. He wanted his pretty little wife and he wanted something else and he couldn't have both.
-- John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
Reasoning
I woke up this morning with more than a small feeling of regret. I came home from The Huntsman yesterday evening knowing I had once again overeaten -- it's so easy, working in a kitchen -- I've got food at my fingertips all day long. But there was a barbecue on at the hostel, and I proceeded to take care of three hamburgers, probably a dozen little fried fish, some rice-haddock salad, french fries, and god knows what else. I could've thanked myself for stomaching so much food as it probably prevented a hangover from too much cheap red wine, but a hangover is just a punishment for overindulgence; and mine was of food not spirits.
Anyway, I woke up early and walked around Galway, with the excuses of buying my weekly bread, eggs and milk, and visiting the Social Welfare office to collect my new Social Services card, and my thoughts were focused on my overconsumption and what I would do about it. My decisions were in depth, and I tried to think up a good way to express them here, but couldn't seem to get past the idea of how stupid it seems for me to write about how I ate too much, and that I actually spent a morning's walk meditating that.
I just got another email today asking me why I'm here. The Philipinos I work with can't grasp the idea that someone holding a computer science degree is washing dishes. I am not sure myself much of the time what I'm doing. But this morning I feel certain that I'm simplifying my life for awhile, so that I have an opportunity to actually observe myself and my world. I have fewer worldly obligations here and now, (though I'm neglecting some,) and so am able to concentrate my attention on little things like I did this morning; address a tendency of mine with observation, and come to some kind of a conclusion.
My temperament swings up and too far down for my liking, (strikes and gutters, as The Dude would say,) and it's nice to take some time out to try and balance myself a bit. So, there ya go, Renatto at the Huntsman, and Tim at Harvard, and Mom at home... and Me. That's why I'm here... in Ireland... washing dishes.
updata
Day to day is AOK, but I feel the need to bust out a little more. I'm in a different place, but I've fallen into a routine -- and routine is what I came to the different place to interrupt. I quit going to Capoeira (see Aug 27) after my first class because I was working during the two timeslots, but I've changed my work hours a bit, and yesterday I had to the opportunity to go... but didn't. Instead I called up the girl I'm working so hard to make mine, and we saw the typical Galway rock cover band at a typical Galway pub, and said the typical goodbye where I'm reminded without words that she has a boy back home in France that she's been seeing for, oh, 5 years. So, I'm lingering in between things; hoping that if I can finally swing her it will be an adventure in itself, worth missing out on some of the other ones I could be having right now.
But, I'm being too critical of the situation. I'm decidedly giving up a lot of time for marathon training, (btw, had my longest run yet this sunday...) and am definitely enjoying the typical bands and typical clubs, and enjoying my frustrations with Emeline. But, I want more adventure and more action, and more time! And a camera and a mobile phone, and a better memory, keener eye, and sharper tongue to make this page more interesting... Keep the peace, kids.
Oh, and it's to my refreshment that Burns' site is alive again.
lost in the woods
No time to think out everything flying through my life. Here's someone else's jumble, sorted out a bit:
Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
-- H.D. Thoreau, Walden
trane to connemara
Tuesday and Wednesday I had a nice break from dishwashing. Eve, Emeline (French friends & ex-Salmon Weir kids,) Chris (a Seattleite and single-serving Salmon,) and I drove north to Connemara for an afternoon/night/morning. The region is incredible; thousands of different shades of green, and small, rocky mountains speckled up and down with white spots: sheep. Anyway, we stayed in Letterfrack at an old monastery turned hostel; a beautiful and mysterious place made a little colder by its bitter and sarcastic owner.
I want to start looking into a digital camera, but I've been so busy with work, running, and seeing friends that this is the first I've even been to the internet in nearly a week; once a staple of my life. Today is my first day off again since that trip last week; this time no travel; had to get some thing sorted out, like taxes and emails and such... Tomorrow maybe some fun.
More Walden
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."
-- H.D. Thoreau, Walden
runnin on dubs
Things are rushing here; lots of hours spent at work and not quite so much digging things around as I'd like, but that's the nature of my trip right now. Quite some time being spent running as well, and sleeping to make the running pay off. I've decided I want to run the Dublin City Marathon on October 28th. I've never run a marathon before - the furthest I've raced is 8k and the furthest I've run in one block is about 13 miles; half the distance of this race. I just picked up my training at the end of August (it's been on and off all summer) so it's kind of going to be a crash course, which is anything but smart, for a marathon. But if by October 11th I think I can swing it, then the entry fee is going in.
You can check out my training; I keep my log at Running-Log.com, a site created by my former CWRU XC teammate Branton Boehm. Branton's done a terrific job on the site, and it's grown quite indispensible to me; I'd recommend it to any runner.
Working Man
So, things are finally seeming to fall into place here. I guess they've been in place all along, but I haven't really trusted myself entirely. I started work on Tuesday at the Huntsman Inn, a restaurant/pub about a mile out of Galway's City Centre; a 20 minute walk from my hostel. I am working as a "kitchen porter." I guess that's Gaelic for dish washer. It's really not too bad, excepting a couple certain activities I have to perform. The people are nice, and I'm actually making money now, which is the important thing. They say there should be a spot for me behind the bar in a week or two, which would be fantastic, but we'll see if that one comes through...
conditions for modern war
Since warefare, and the credible threat of resorting to it, is still at the core of state power, since the end of the Vietnam war strategists have been busy finding ways still to make war. Only under this condition can economic, technological, and demographic power be translated into domination over other states, the oldest game in humankind. Three conclusions were rapidly reached in advanced, democratic countries, regarding the conditions necessary to make war somewhat acceptable to society:
1. It should not involve common citizens, thus being enacted by a professional army, so that the mandatory draft should be reserved for truly exceptional circumstances, perceived as unlikely.
2. It should be short, even instantaneous, so that the consequences would not linger on, draining human and economic resources, and raising questions about the justification for military action.
3. It shold be clean, surgical, with destruction, even of the enemy, kept within reasonable limits and as hidden as possible from public view, with the consequence of linking closely information-handling, image-making, and war-making.
Dramatic breakthroughs in military technology in the last two decadres provided the tools to implement this socio-military strategy. Well-trained, well-equipped, full-time, professional armed forces do not require the involvement of the population at large in the war effort, except for viewing and cheering from their living rooms a particularly exciting sho, punctuated with deep patriotic feelings.
-- Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society
broken record
Well, this weekend was somewhat of a bust. I was pretty hyped to go to Creamfields on Saturday, a huge dance music festival near Dublin. An Irish girl from my hostel and I left early on Saturday morning and caught the train to Dublin, then a bus out to Punchestown Racecourse, where the festival was being held. We met up with some of her friends, and wandered from tent to tent, checking out the DJs. Long story short, my friend wandered off ("momentarily") to find another friend we were supposed to meet, and she and I didn't see eachother until we were on the train the next morning. Which would've been fine except for the fact that I was under the funny impression that we should try to meet back up since we weren't sure where we were going to stay that night, and we had come to the show together. Well, anyway, she met up with some other friends and had a blast while I spent a few hours at the Meeting Point, chatting with people. I gave up and salvaged the end of the night, propelled by Seb Fontaine's beats, and found a hostel in Dublin to crash at. I don't mind being ditched so long as I am made aware that I should go fend for myself and not worry that the ditcher is not going to have a place to sleep, and I don't waste quite a few euros and a rare opportunity to see some really good music happening.