not falling down

I’ve reached the point, in my autoeducation as a cook, where I no longer really measure spices or indeed many liquids. This is great for saving time and for not having to rinse a measuring cup every time I need a quarter-unit of something. It is less great when something I make turns out well and I want to write down the recipe for the future. “A bunch of white pepper,” I find myself writing. “Like, as much as a good cook would put in but then also some more.”

If I could always trust myself to make the same judgments based on words like that I wouldn’t have any problems, but I have no faith in Locke and therefore I am not even sure I’m the same person who started this post, much less the one who cooked a pretty good spaghetti nonbolognese earlier tonight. Also it is probably going to be unhelpful in my inevitable cooking blog.

The (thoroughly hidden) point I wanted to record here is that I’m kind of a good cook now? I’m still working in a very small range, but I keep trying new things and they keep turning out pretty okay. I think cooking is, like kissing and biking, essentially a matter of confidence. The food will believe you’re in charge if you act like it.

I learned to cook spaghetti in ten-gallon vats, almost exactly ten years ago, when Jeremy Sissle got me a job at Fazoli’s. He was also the one who trained me on pasta-cooking rotation. We got to the end, and he hauled out the hose, sponges and soap. “Turn on the hot water,” he said, “and fill the bucket, add about this much soap, and… I mean, you know how to clean stuff.”

I still recite that sentence to myself in scary and uncertain places. It sounds stupid, but I did know how to clean stuff, and remembering that snapped me out of the standard lost-and-seasick feeling that everybody gets from new jobs. (At least, I assume everybody else gets it too.)

The other half of my cook-with-confidence mantra was posted by Kevan, years ago, in a comment on Leonard’s site: “I’ve only recently stopped… expecting food to be an inedible, inert, black lump of Syntax Error if I get something slightly wrong.” It’s so true, and such a perfect encapsulation of the way programmers approach other disciplines: raised by severe machines and math problems with one answer, we expect frustration as a punishment for the smallest mistakes (and indeed, with computers, that often remains the case). But once you realize that the notion of discrete measurement is a consensual hallucination, you find the world a more interesting place. Screw Locke. I’m glad I’m not the same person I used to be.

Jon and Amanda are having their baby, and Jon is blogging it live! I’ve been following along as the due date came and went with mounting anticipation (like, surely more than THEY have been), so I’m really glad they’re keeping us updated so closely. The child I can ruin is almost here!

Sumana has managed to combine almost all the reasons I read her blog–inspiration, clarity, critical appraisal of systems and examination of self–into one spectacular post. You should read it.

There’s a quote from Count Zero about being taken up from a low place, rotated through “invisible stresses,” and emerging changed. It’s actually kind of negative in context so I’m not going to reproduce it here. But at some point I have to write about how my interaction with propelled and propulsive people has changed me: how my internship at Dixon Design, followed by meeting Leonard and Sumana, followed by living with Kevan and Holly, reshaped me into someone who no longer fits anywhere outside the self-determined life.

I would have to actually achieve that life first, so I’m not writing it yet. But Sumana’s post brings up another connected point: work that matters for its own sake is superior to work that matters by fiat, which is to say that academic work is worthless in the short or long term, which is to say that I think the lecture-test educational system used in the United States (and, in my understanding, most of the rest of the world) is a sham, a wreck and a hindrance. I graduated with awards and honors from a large public high school and an elite private college, and I still say the system failed me. The intersection of what I learned in classes and my work, play and continuing interests is almost nonexistent; meanwhile, I’m still dealing with the fear and shame endemic to those institutions, and the ways they damaged me.

Under all that I continue to grow more absorbed with the idea of having children someday. I’m starting to consider my life choices in terms of where they’ll grow up, how I’ll support them and how they will learn. (How I’ll actually go about having them is almost secondary.) Could I in good conscience send them down the path less traveled, without having checked it for perils myself? Could I ever prepare them enough for the perils of the path I did take? Sumana again: isn’t it possible to sidestep the bad parts, with enough planning? Well, no, Brendan. Don’t deny the imaginary kids their own invisible stresses.

But if I start seriously working on my own propulsion, maybe my example can reshape someone else.

What are some of the brightest lights in webcomics saying about Brendan Adkins and Ommatidia?

“I didn’t know about it.”

–Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade

“Asshole.”

–Scott Kurtz of PvP, at the Emerald City Comicon

“Pretty slick, but my shout-out is not without motive.”

–Kristofer Straub of Starslip Crisis*

* Kristofer Straub was paid $50 during book creation for unrelated reasons

I keep the Moleskine and the Micron next to my bed so I can write down story ideas I have while falling asleep, and on mornings after they usually turn out about half useful and half dumb. But even in their hastiness and abbreviation, I can almost always follow the signifying notes back to the image or twist that precipitated them.

I had two last night. One was a Chosen Ones story that I’ll probably do up for next week. The other?

“Six big diapers.”

I offer this to the world.

I live in Portland now. I had some exceedingly mild adventures in San Francisco, and took a lot of pictures that you will see sometime around 2018. Maria came to visit and that was really nice. Hugner is fine.

I’ve been in a self-imposed sweatshop lockbox all this week, trying to prepare for the big show: Stumptown Comics Fest, where I will be exhibiting with free microcomics and a six-word story completion marathon and, yes, Ommatidia, the first Anacrusis book. No, you can’t buy it online yet, not until I finish setting up the storefront. I am planning to have that up by my birthday (a week from tomorrow).

I realize that I have announced this far too late for anyone who wasn’t already planning to come to Stumptown to show up; trust me, that is all part of a strategy. Eventually I may even figure out what the strategy is. But on the off chance that there are any Anacrusis fans in the PDX, show up! There are a lot more reasons to do so than just me and my tablemates (”Cinema Sewer”).

OKAY KIDS. On the last day of March I’m leaving my suspiciously generous hosts here in NorCar and driving across the country, with stops in Louisville, Birmingham and eventually Berkeley. After two weeks (I hope) in the latter, I’m moving up to Portland to stay from somewhere between four and nine months. Looks like the trap got me after all.

So! Are you in a southwestern state or the Bay area? Would you like to hang out? Would you like to damage local hotel revenues by letting me spend a night on your couch? These can be arranged. Other things that can be arranged: me renting a room or subletting an apartment from people you know because MAN it is hard to get people on Portland Craigslist to get back to you when you don’t live in the same city. I don’t know why!

I promise to take pictures on the trip but I can’t promise you will see them in the living future. Oh, hey, if you want to ride out with me and fly back, as I once did with Leonard, let’s talk. I should warn you that due unwise purchasing decisions on my part, you will have to ride in the glove compartment.

GREATEST

EVER

My phone has no ringtones and I’ve never owned a CD I didn’t rip, but the record industry has finally found a way to get even me to pay for songs I already own: Rock Band. At least the downloadable tracks have the value-add of being interactive at multiple levels. What they do not have, sadly, is a way to cater exclusively to my taste. Until now!

I put these together working on the three-songs-per-band model they’ve established on Live so far, and basically within the creators’ bent toward three- or four-piece groups and a fairly narrow definition of “rock.” Also with the fact that I don’t really know anything about music before 1998.

Semisonic:

• “Brand New Baby”
• “Closing Time” (well, I mean, come on)
• “Get a Grip”

Queen, although I know these are all impossible for one reason or another:

• “Bohemian Rhapsody”
• “Under Pressure”
• “Killer Queen”

Jimmy Eat World:

• “Lucky Denver Mint”
• “Sweetness”
• “Nightdrive”

Barenaked Ladies (man, this is hard):

• “Brian Wilson (live)”
• “Too Little Too Late”
• “Maybe You’re Right”

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists:

• “Me and Mia”
• “Counting Down the Hours”
• “La Costa Brava”

I know there are already a million Foo Fighters songs, but still:

• “Everlong”
• “Breakout”
• “All My Life”

The New Pornographers:

• “Mass Romantic”
• “Letter from an Occupant”
• “Sing Me Spanish Techno”

And, finally, U2 (yeah, I know they’re working on it):

• “Desire”
• “Mysterious Ways”
• “If God Will Send His Angels”

I invite you to eviscerate me in commentary, or post your own wishlists. Maria, for example: Prince? Lisa: TMBG? Someone: Beck or the Decemberists?

Update 1432 hrs: Andy suggests replacing “Sing Me Spanish Techno” with “The Bleeding Hearts Show,” and offers a Tragically Hip three-pack:

• “New Orleans Is Sinking”
• “38 Years Old”
• “Fireworks”

And Ken, inevitably, has a list with a lot more depth than mine:

Jamiroquai:

• “Canned Heat”
• “Alright”
• “Black Capricorn Day”

Smashing Pumpkins:

• “Cherub Rock”
• “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”
• “Today”

Guns N Roses:

• “Welcome to the Jungle”
• “Live and Let Die”
• “Nighttrain”

Pearl Jam:

• “Life Wasted”
• “Alive”
• “Rearviewmirror”

Talking Heads:

• “Psycho Killer”
• “Uh Oh, Love Comes to Town”
• “Take Me to the River”

Beck (most doesn’t translate well to guitar, bass and drums):

• “Loser”
• “E-Pro”
• “The New Pollution”

Spoon:

• “Don’t You Evah”
• “I Turn My Camera On”
• “Sister Jack”

Jimi Hendrix:

• “Spanish Castle Magic”
• “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)”
• “Fire”

Pink Floyd:

• “Comfortably Numb”
• “Money”
• “Arnold Layne”

Sublime:

• “Smoke Two Joints”
• “Santeria”
• “Pawn Shop”

And single songs:

• The Dandy Warhols - “Bohemian Like You”
• TV on the Radio - “Wolf Like Me”
• !!! - “Must Be the Moon”
• Arctic Monkeys - “I’ll Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”
• Styx - “Renegade”

And Scott put up a list for Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears, who would be insanely fun (and REALLY HARD) to play in RB–not impossible, either, as Harmonix has been pretty good to indie rock:

• Flight of the Knife
• Imitation of the Sky
• Son of Stab

Stories I have written that revolve around invented or reinterpreted methods of divination: Stella, Jaboullei, Rob, Shekel and Jewel. I was kind of surprised it was this few–I feel like it’s one of the structures to which I keep returning. There’s another one coming Monday, if you hadn’t guessed.

I think the reason I keep coming back to this is a variation on the existential dread I feel when considering the persistence of objects (eg the lives of sapient dishes): the amount of potential information in the world, and how quickly our ability to capture and interpret it is growing, and how insignificant that capability will always be–in an obscure way, these things terrify me. They also thrill me. Look at what we can discover! If time and distance are the universe’s crypto, divination is the original side channel attack.

I also live in constant fear of side channel attacks, by the way, to the point where I have resigned myself to much-more-likely primary channel attacks. I kind of never want to be even mildly famous, as that would destroy what flimsy comfort I take in anonymity.

Anyway, you’ll know I’ve gutted the shark on this theme when I write the one about logymancy. Meanwhile I want to do more of these little collect-and-explain entries; I think they’d be a better point of entry to Anacrusis for new or hesitant readers than just the sheer blank mass of the archives. When one of my best friends refers to my writing corpus as “a stupid amount” and my own mother is too intimidated to read them, I am pretty much failing to sell my product.

Sometimes I am mean! Sometimes I am a mean person.

But she started it.

Mom and Grammo, you might not want to read this.

I got a new phone a couple months ago, with a reassigned number, and sometimes I get unexpected phone calls for the person who used to have it (I believe her name is Kate). What I had not received–until last night–was unexpected text messages.

Dis is diamond do
lee like me

I am not as young as I once was, and I confess this took me a while to parse. At first I thought it might be some kind of arcane dance instruction. Eventually, I determined that I was being asked to be some sort of intermediary. So wasn’t it only fair that I be brutally honest with Diamond?

no,

I replied,

he said hes in2
guyz now lol

Diamond was understandably confused! I soon came to see why:

Who u talkin
about im talkin
about leeanna
dat light skin gay
gurl

Ah, so I was being asked to play Cupid between lesbians. Having been burned on this before, I resisted.

Oh dat bitch, she
a ho u dont want
nun a her, she
got the gwarts

At this point, Diamond called me. I let it ring through to voicemail; surely when she heard my greeting she’d figure things out for herself.

Then she texted again.

Ray who u talkin about

(Ray! I… am… Ray!)

im talkin about dat gurl
dat was wit us
today

At this point we picked up our takeout food and I decided to let the matter drop.

Until the next morning, when Diamond called me again, then texted when I didn’t
pick up.

Get up n start
gettin ready cuz
im goin 2 the
library at 11

Despite a resurgent suspicion that my dance-instruction hypothesis was correct after all, I decided to come clean.

Okay, I can’t
keep this up anymore.
Have you not figured
out from the
voicemail
greeting that I’m
not whoever you
think I am?

Diamond had now had T-Mobile shout “Bren. Dan’s. VOICEMAIL!” twice at her, so naturally she sought clarification.

Who is dis

Dis is Brendan.
Like it says, very
loudly, when you
call my voicemail.
Listen, if you
hook up with Lee
you’ll send me
pics, right?

Either Diamond wanted to confirm said greeting once and for all or I had finally drawn her ire. She called a third time, and then:

Tis is diamond
mom if she do
hook up ill kill her
want a pic of
that dont ask no
more dum ass
question i kill u
diam is not a hoe
dont ask 4 no
pics

Now the teenage lesbian was pretending to be someone else! In Soviet Russia, Internet wastes time on you! But the sheer verbosity of her reply surely indicated that her blood was up; I thought maybe that was the place to stop.

It only took her half an hour to start gloating.

U dont have any
more dum ass
questions freak

You poked the bears! Why did you do that! Will suggested an appropriate greeting for my final reply.

Dear Mrs. Diamond:
Your textual fusillade
has left me chagrined.
You’ll have no more
dum ass questions
from me; forthwith,
I’ll issue only
the most
erudite queries.

Now pics or gtfo.

Sadly for us, dear reader, she chose the latter optin.

Good bye & dont
text my phone 4
diamond

And there, it would appear, the matter rests.

I just wish she’d accidentally typed in Ken’s number all those times instead.