Sunday, December 22, 2002

If it's possible that each of our body chemistries have a food that is as spinach is to popeye, I think mine would be haggis. It was wierd not working tonight. I guess Sundays have always needed some routine for me, since I haven't done the church thing for a while. La Patisserie when I moved to St. Louis. Juniper Springs State Park in Florida. Rugby for a year. Scott and Denise's for dinner for a few years. Now it's Sqwires. But I am so missing having evenings free. Someone asked me the other night why it had been so long since I'd been with anyone. Some of it is that I've been supremely happy without, so it hasn't been a strong priority. Some of it is that I've been focused on work so much that the last three years have been a blur. The paradox is that while I think relationships are important, that also means prioritizing as if relationships are important - not trifling for the sake of having one, or getting married even. 11:40:50 PM

Tricia gave away all the poinsettas last night. The catererers told her to give away the poinsetta's they'd left, and she didn't realize that most of them belonged to Sqwires. The whole night she sat, drunk at the end of the bar, dispensing good cheer. I convinced her at the end of tonight, the next day, that when she looks at it two weeks from now, she will not only find it water under the bridge, but some pretty damn hilarious flow. I wonder how blogs will change the historic record, if at all. Even if everyone in the world blogged, and had their blogs archived, would historians be able to make anything meaningful of the aggregate or individual? It makes me think of the article, and I can't remember the author, maybe Abbot, about the mythology of Bismark. And the volume edited by Hobsbam about mythological histories in Great Britain. In the Dream of Scipio, which I'm reading right now, big shout out to Scotty G., one of the common threads of the fictional novel is a document by one of the characters from early Christendom uncovered by a poet and scholar in the 14th century (who delights more in delighting in that which no one else delights) and found later by a scholar during the Vichy regime in France. Carter Revard once said that fiction is about something true that never happened. In history, in mythology, I don't know that there is that distinct a line. So much depends on finding the specific documentation of a period, so much depends on interpretation within a period, whether "hard" science or social science, that the distinction makes all scholarship, on some level, journalism. I think the ultimate advancement in science will be evinced by researchers declaring at the beginning of any journal article is "that our present understanding" is, or "our present research and methodology shows us that." Which all comes down to people being more important, after all, than ideas. That insecurity, that immediacy for truth is the same recipe for insecurity that makes me believe that we are still mostly driven by our limbic brains. From what my present understanding is. Based on present published and publicly accesible research and knowledge. All the recent babies and the Adbusters article on baby food reminds me of how early we are caught up in the cycle of insecurity that, while it has some benefits, that may only be tangible because we've never explored, as yet, a globally cooperative model, especially as measured against the survival of the human species, let alone the planet, or the forces we don't yet understand that bind the universe, requires more and more consumer oriented behaviour. You are almost forced to buy produced baby food, despite the fact that it's so easy to make, because that five minutes of time becomes scarcer and scarcer and you struggle to pay your house and your car and your credit card payments, and start your infant child on the same cycle. Of insecurity and want, in an abundant world. Which reminds me of how surprised I am not that the Nazis existed but that they don't exist more often. People living in an insecure world will, almost naively, childlike, grasp for perceived power, even if that means grabbing it at the expense of others. It's not greed as much as it's a misguided sociobiology, not caught up yet with the advantages of cooperation for the long term survival of species. But I am mainly thinking tonight about how little I want to change the world, how little I seek a new England, and what classic grace and beauty and style she holds, with a brain and wit making the whole package more convincing, like I'm watching a movie unfold before my eyes, stepping forward from the gaffer to the leading man, a little star struck, but understanding, from so many studies behind the scenes, the mechanics that make it all work, but mainly, mostly mainly, not worrying so much, the pressure off for any great work, in anyones' minds, and just having fandom fun, delighting in the gaffed lines and tied tongues even. 2:55:17 AM