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How I spent my computer vacation
Oct. 2nd, 2005 08:57 amYou will be happy--or at least, you will probably be indifferent, but I am very happy--to know that I did finally coax my cranky old laptop not only online, but online with working sound (and this computer has not had working sound in literal years). And when you consider that there was no apparent reason but sheer orneriness for it to be offline in the first place, I feel not accomplished so much as charming. I feel like the heroine of a turn-of-the-century novel, so winsome and appealing that even legendarily crusty types just melt helplessly in her presence, and it is a good feeling.
:::
I've wondered, as I've gotten older, where all the empty evening hours of my life as a young grownup went. When I was younger, I would read after dinner until bedtime, a sort of communal reading where you sort of share interesting things with your roommate, discuss them or read them aloud. And there were so many hours to fill! Time just stretched out before us every night, and we never felt rushed or as though we'd lost some essential wind-down time.
As I say, I've wondered what happened to all that time, but now I must wonder no longer, because as soon as my computer quit working, I realized where it'd gone. It is surely no coincidence that since my computer was packed into a box and shipped off to another part of the world, I've got those long evenings back again.
That doesn't mean that I plan on spending less time on my computer once I get my real laptop back, or even now that I have a working substitute. It is just an observation, really.
:::
Now, you can possibly guess from the above that I've been reading in my time offline; reading has shifted from favored way of passing time to emergency backup method, but it is still way up at the top of preferred time-killing methods. In the past week, I've read four books and started two more, and it has been lovely, and I won't discuss them in-depth here except to say that (1) I've enjoyed Anansi Boys more than any other of Neil Gaiman's post-Sandman novels, and (2) I've realized that that theme that I consider to be my theme (i.e., the ways in which people miss connections and misunderstand each other and accidentally hurt each other, sabotage their relationships without even knowing that's what they're doing) is still my theme.
:::
And finally: in my brief tenure as an architecture student, we were frequently given design problems to solve and were graded on the ways in which we solved them. We designed houses for Thoreau, for a couple who worked day-shift/night-shift, for someone who wanted a tree-house, and those were the fun projects, the ones where you had to hook your design aesthetic onto someone else's train and still make it work, the kind of projects that most designers will be getting for most of their lives. I really loved working on those projects (if only because all my clients were imaginary and therefore couldn't come back and tell me that I'd got it all wrong and the whole thing was shit besides).
Anyway, I mention this fact only as a preface to this little story: that the other night I dreamed I was back in architecture school and that each student in the studio was given someone different to design a house for. My "client" was Satan, and I wish that I'd gotten to do this project so much that I am actually thinking now, seriously: what kind of house would Satan live in? How would he be most comfortable? I guess in response to those questions, I'd have to pick a Satan to design for, because there are so very many Satans about, and so I'm thinking about that, too, different Princes of Darkness in the history of literature, and which ones I'd like to design for.
Yeah, so, er, it looks like I've also been spending my time thinking about designing a house for Satan. Is what I'm saying.
Yes, I know.
:::
I've wondered, as I've gotten older, where all the empty evening hours of my life as a young grownup went. When I was younger, I would read after dinner until bedtime, a sort of communal reading where you sort of share interesting things with your roommate, discuss them or read them aloud. And there were so many hours to fill! Time just stretched out before us every night, and we never felt rushed or as though we'd lost some essential wind-down time.
As I say, I've wondered what happened to all that time, but now I must wonder no longer, because as soon as my computer quit working, I realized where it'd gone. It is surely no coincidence that since my computer was packed into a box and shipped off to another part of the world, I've got those long evenings back again.
That doesn't mean that I plan on spending less time on my computer once I get my real laptop back, or even now that I have a working substitute. It is just an observation, really.
:::
Now, you can possibly guess from the above that I've been reading in my time offline; reading has shifted from favored way of passing time to emergency backup method, but it is still way up at the top of preferred time-killing methods. In the past week, I've read four books and started two more, and it has been lovely, and I won't discuss them in-depth here except to say that (1) I've enjoyed Anansi Boys more than any other of Neil Gaiman's post-Sandman novels, and (2) I've realized that that theme that I consider to be my theme (i.e., the ways in which people miss connections and misunderstand each other and accidentally hurt each other, sabotage their relationships without even knowing that's what they're doing) is still my theme.
:::
And finally: in my brief tenure as an architecture student, we were frequently given design problems to solve and were graded on the ways in which we solved them. We designed houses for Thoreau, for a couple who worked day-shift/night-shift, for someone who wanted a tree-house, and those were the fun projects, the ones where you had to hook your design aesthetic onto someone else's train and still make it work, the kind of projects that most designers will be getting for most of their lives. I really loved working on those projects (if only because all my clients were imaginary and therefore couldn't come back and tell me that I'd got it all wrong and the whole thing was shit besides).
Anyway, I mention this fact only as a preface to this little story: that the other night I dreamed I was back in architecture school and that each student in the studio was given someone different to design a house for. My "client" was Satan, and I wish that I'd gotten to do this project so much that I am actually thinking now, seriously: what kind of house would Satan live in? How would he be most comfortable? I guess in response to those questions, I'd have to pick a Satan to design for, because there are so very many Satans about, and so I'm thinking about that, too, different Princes of Darkness in the history of literature, and which ones I'd like to design for.
Yeah, so, er, it looks like I've also been spending my time thinking about designing a house for Satan. Is what I'm saying.
Yes, I know.
