Recent Events, Contemplation, Poetry
Hmmmm.... where to start?
These past few days have been relatively calm. I've spent them rearranging my room and organizing the orders for replacement parts. Turing should be fully operational(and then some) by Monday, far ahead of schedule.
On the 29th, all my friends came over to play Shadowrun, a tabletop RPG I am an afficionado of. When they arrived, another friend called, and they instead decided to hang out here and watch movies with him. I'm sort of relieved, as I am not a fan of their playing style, and as such it isn't really fun to be a gamemaster for them.
To be blunt, they made complete asses of themselves. They wrecked my house, ate my food, insulted a good friend of mine(perhaps a better one than them) and left without cleaning up. They show me little respect. It's gotten to the point where my opinion of them is so low that I really take no offense at their behavior, but I am torn.
I've known these people my entire life, for the most part, or at least for many, many years. I entrust my safety to them when we endeavor to go and do risky things, and rightly so. I do trust them with that. How can one trust people with one's safety, but not trust them to be out of your sight while they are guests in your house?
I've been re-arranging my room. The style is pseudo-Japanese, with emphasis on low-to-the-ground surfaces and lack of ornamentation. Utilitarian. A mattress on the floor to sleep, a low table with enough space to write and study as well as holding my entertainment system, a book shelf, a dresser, and some drawers. Shades of white, black, and gray are the theme.
I feel ambivalence towards it, but I feel that in removing much of the personal effects from my living space, I'll encourage myself to depend on my own processes and my own inner strength, rather than the morale-boosting or happy-memory inducing imagery I tend to surround myself with almost subconsciously.
I saw the most ordinary, interesting thing today as I headed home from a party. A storm had powdered the roads with white snow, and as the cars ahead moved, they tossed up torrents of it while blowing more with exhaust. Steam and snow mixed and danced together in swirling, chaotic patterns.
I was caught with how simple, how common, such an event was, and yet how it was the result of an incalculable number of variables falling into a certain place at a certain series of instants. I reflected on how, to simulate something so simple as the whirling of snow or dust devils or leaf-storms in the school playground when I was a child, one would need a massively parallel supercomputer of immense power. It allows me to appreciate the simple complexity of nature and the beauty therein.
Now for that poem. It's something I've been composing in my mind for over a week. I started composing it the instant I saw what it is named for.
"The Gray Sun"
The sounds of the road;
Dozens of wheels carry me closer to her.
The calm after the storm;
Landscapes frozen in eternal ice, reflecting.
The sky clouded, the sun a lighter shade amid myriad shades of gray. A circle. A compass.
The sounds of my pulse;
Regrets and fears push me farther from her.
The calm after a battle;
I sit and watch it pass, reflecting.
The gray sun shines.
I go west.
Life goes on.
These past few days have been relatively calm. I've spent them rearranging my room and organizing the orders for replacement parts. Turing should be fully operational(and then some) by Monday, far ahead of schedule.
On the 29th, all my friends came over to play Shadowrun, a tabletop RPG I am an afficionado of. When they arrived, another friend called, and they instead decided to hang out here and watch movies with him. I'm sort of relieved, as I am not a fan of their playing style, and as such it isn't really fun to be a gamemaster for them.
To be blunt, they made complete asses of themselves. They wrecked my house, ate my food, insulted a good friend of mine(perhaps a better one than them) and left without cleaning up. They show me little respect. It's gotten to the point where my opinion of them is so low that I really take no offense at their behavior, but I am torn.
I've known these people my entire life, for the most part, or at least for many, many years. I entrust my safety to them when we endeavor to go and do risky things, and rightly so. I do trust them with that. How can one trust people with one's safety, but not trust them to be out of your sight while they are guests in your house?
I've been re-arranging my room. The style is pseudo-Japanese, with emphasis on low-to-the-ground surfaces and lack of ornamentation. Utilitarian. A mattress on the floor to sleep, a low table with enough space to write and study as well as holding my entertainment system, a book shelf, a dresser, and some drawers. Shades of white, black, and gray are the theme.
I feel ambivalence towards it, but I feel that in removing much of the personal effects from my living space, I'll encourage myself to depend on my own processes and my own inner strength, rather than the morale-boosting or happy-memory inducing imagery I tend to surround myself with almost subconsciously.
I saw the most ordinary, interesting thing today as I headed home from a party. A storm had powdered the roads with white snow, and as the cars ahead moved, they tossed up torrents of it while blowing more with exhaust. Steam and snow mixed and danced together in swirling, chaotic patterns.
I was caught with how simple, how common, such an event was, and yet how it was the result of an incalculable number of variables falling into a certain place at a certain series of instants. I reflected on how, to simulate something so simple as the whirling of snow or dust devils or leaf-storms in the school playground when I was a child, one would need a massively parallel supercomputer of immense power. It allows me to appreciate the simple complexity of nature and the beauty therein.
Now for that poem. It's something I've been composing in my mind for over a week. I started composing it the instant I saw what it is named for.
"The Gray Sun"
The sounds of the road;
Dozens of wheels carry me closer to her.
The calm after the storm;
Landscapes frozen in eternal ice, reflecting.
The sky clouded, the sun a lighter shade amid myriad shades of gray. A circle. A compass.
The sounds of my pulse;
Regrets and fears push me farther from her.
The calm after a battle;
I sit and watch it pass, reflecting.
The gray sun shines.
I go west.
Life goes on.