Thursday, April 10, 2014

of time and sharks and internet

We've been reading 'The Time Regulation Committee' by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar for book club, of which two other members showed up at the house on Friday and we talked about sundry things and I drank tea instead of booze because I developed some kind of nasty cold or somesuch and woke up the next morning barely able to to get out of the driveway to go and try some kind of weird 19th century homeopathic business that worked quite well coupled with garlic and ample amounts of ginger tea. It was really good, reminded me of a less dystopian Kafka with a bit of wry Vonnegut thrown in and a lot of Turkish cultural references that I'm not sure I completely got.

And I spent the weekend holed up in the house listening to Nirvana and Alice in Chains and bringing order to my kitchen before finally feeling good enough to go over to my sister's to hang out with the little dudes and read science books about sharks to them which were mostly about how they kill and eat humans and whatnot, which inevitably led to me narrating about great whites and hammerheads in the Daria voice. We met up last night for Indian food and to walk down to the lake and let the rugrats run around the park, where fun was had by all.

FACT: The Vampire Squid is neither vampire nor squid!

 
 I also dipped my toes into the internets dating pool just to say I've tried it, because for as many people as I know this town and as many circles as I run in, most of my friends with similar beliefs are married (I am the only single 25-35 year old in my admittedly small congregation), and everyone else is drunk and there'd be other compatibility issues anyway (religion still being a dealbreaker, especially in these times where people make it more polarizing than it needs to be). It's a little disheartening to see how semi-literate and sports-obsessed everyone seems to be, and no I don't find your love of golf and television appealing at all and what kind of craft beer you drink doesn't automatically make you interesting or cultured.

I go hiking with one of the homegirls and we talk about this, she's met someone wonderful that way, but maybe it's easier for my progressive friends to find each other, such is life. At any rate, I'm not bored, and life stays interesting, and at least I know I won't settle for being bored with someone else.

The Internet's a strange beast and I realize that I don't like the way it makes people treat each other. I watched someone go vigilante being all big man behind the computer, knowing full well all the dirt on him and the way that he's treated others, and feel that sending incriminating internets dumbassery to the offenders' coworkers is a particularly low move, but also maybe I'm not much different by the sheer act of even writing this.

but we project these images of virtue, and kill each others' reputations so easily as plot points in our stories, and if anything I feel somewhat validated that my initial assessment was not far off at all, that all my gut feelings were right, that I did not want to partake in any association with this person.Others may disagree and do but the hypocrisy and vindictiveness and the projection of righteousness from those who I know have skeletons in the closet is a little hard to swallow. Maybe we all have these things and should be mindful.


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