Choose your own Weekend
[Sorry if this came up a couple times for people on feed readers, I botched a cut-n-paste.]
I wander around in the way I perceive the world. Sometimes, I watch my life like a novel or a movie, one long story in which I'm the questionably interesting star. Other times, I cast out looking through a mesh of stories, imagining that every thing's intertwined, trying to imagine how every interaction can be seen through a thousand views. More times yet, I view my life as a series of choices, like a Choose your own Adventure book or a video game where I get to pick from a few sets of dialogs at interesting points. Usually, I pick the safe one, the one that's obviously the right one to choose, where it's clear it goes to the page where I won't die. But I always wonder how the story goes if I choose one of the options where I tell the alien he looks like a booger, or look to see what's on the wing. Stories with Choices always seemed more alive to me, like they weren't stories in a museum. I always used to keep an elaborate set of bookmarks (later, saved games) so I could see all the interesting ways stories changed based on what I did. In real life, I don't get do do that, I think. Who knows though - maybe I do. I have a story about that.
I went to see Iron Man today, then I saw that it was a beautiful day, so I went to the gym and ran on the machine for a while. It would have been nice to go work out outside, but working out is where I do my best story creation, because I can get all the way lost inside my head. I can't do that riding a bike outside. Or rather, I can, and that's how I ended up with a skinned knee yesterday. I haven't had one of those for years. It was wonderful. So I went to the gym to make a story. First things first, so I took off my glasses, ostrichlike, because if I can't see them, they can't see me, and more importantly, if I know I can't see them I won't feel guilty about looking at them because I can't. Look at them, that is, not feel guilty. I can do that just fine. That's also why I go the gym late, just before it closes. Fewer people to worry about not looking at. I worried about keeping them open until close to close too, so I asked, to be safe, and they said it's ok. But I make sure I'm never the last one there anyway.
So I went to the gym to make a story. It's about a rainbow Sargasso of floating plastic bits in the Pacific, swept together into a islandlike mat, where people live and walk around on big woven plastic snowshoes (for plastic, not snow) to keep from falling through to the things that live beneath. Sort of like Gilligan's Island meets the Snow Crash Raft. It's got problems with anemone slugs, and dreams from a pearl, and it may fit inside another story I have, all Arabian Nights-like, and I'll probably never write this one down. I feel like writing a story down kills it like pinning a butterfly to a board. Ends all the Choices. But this one was just about right. I told it to myself, and went back and rewound and played through the bits with Choices again, and things happened differently, and it felt alive because it wasn't the same dead story yet, nailed to a board. And then the machine started beeping at me. I squinted down and saw something scroll by about maximum heart rate before the machine went limp. So I was done, with the story and the running.
Rainbow Sargasso, slugs, dreams of a pearl, beeping machine. I decided I wanted to get salsa and milk. On the way to Woodman's, I realized that the gas I would burn would add a nontrivial bit to the cost of my meager food, and that I hadn't even recognized the Choice that was there when I decided to go to the giant anonymous store instead of the tiny Mexican grocery more directly on my way home. I realized I didn't even know if it was open, in five years of driving past it I had never even looked at the hours.
I went to the giant anonymous store. While I was walking through the coffee & tea isle on my way to the checkout, I saw a woman there out of the corner of my eye. I didn't really look at her, just saw that she was sort of small. Immediately, I began to make mental excuses for looking at her, as if I had - explaining to the default authority that I justify everything to that she looked like an ex-girlfriend, only not anymore, because I had been comparing her to a memory and the ex-girlfriend was older now, so really I had meant no harm, I just get lost in my mind so easily and hadn't realized that it was wrong. Only I don't know what she looked like, because I never looked at all. I used the automated checkout machine on the way out. I've never liked them, always afraid that I'm going to scan something wrong and get arrested, or worse yet, that the machine will beep and draw the ire of the person who minds their herd. On the way out the machine next to mine started to call for the herd minder. I didn't stay to see how it ended.
I went to the Mexican grocery store on my way home. Decided that maybe I could see both pages. Said Hello and Thank You to the woman behind the counter, avoided stepping on the small child on the way out. It was nice talking to someone, even if when she said her pleasantries I didn't know if they were words to her or just sounds. Still, it was nice interacting with someone in person today not as a gnome. I was initially a bit surprised that they didn't have decent salsa, but then I realized that the people that shop there probably just buy the parts and make their own. I could have done that, but I had a platonic ideal of salsa that I wanted, and I don't feel comfortable creating things. I can't get over the feeling that making something kills all the Choices of things that weren't made. That stupid refusal to create is probably my worst flaw. But I had salsa already anyway.
Well, that was interesting. I held on to most of my thoughts. Usually I'll get a nice little pile of them, then something shiny will distract me and they'll go fluttering off like petals in the wind. That's why I have piles of paper around that say things like
vampire hunting in the Smithsonian
with two mooks and Galahad
in the latrine
waiting to dim door away
I don't know what it meant, but it's the sad, storyless corpse that's left when I try to nail a dream to paper before it gets away.
Anyway, Iron Man was pretty good. He'd make an excellent spokesman for National Heart Health Month, or American Heart Month, or Heart Month. I don't know why they're explicitly not the same, and I'm sure that there's a story there, but it's not one I'd like to know.
I wander around in the way I perceive the world. Sometimes, I watch my life like a novel or a movie, one long story in which I'm the questionably interesting star. Other times, I cast out looking through a mesh of stories, imagining that every thing's intertwined, trying to imagine how every interaction can be seen through a thousand views. More times yet, I view my life as a series of choices, like a Choose your own Adventure book or a video game where I get to pick from a few sets of dialogs at interesting points. Usually, I pick the safe one, the one that's obviously the right one to choose, where it's clear it goes to the page where I won't die. But I always wonder how the story goes if I choose one of the options where I tell the alien he looks like a booger, or look to see what's on the wing. Stories with Choices always seemed more alive to me, like they weren't stories in a museum. I always used to keep an elaborate set of bookmarks (later, saved games) so I could see all the interesting ways stories changed based on what I did. In real life, I don't get do do that, I think. Who knows though - maybe I do. I have a story about that.
I went to see Iron Man today, then I saw that it was a beautiful day, so I went to the gym and ran on the machine for a while. It would have been nice to go work out outside, but working out is where I do my best story creation, because I can get all the way lost inside my head. I can't do that riding a bike outside. Or rather, I can, and that's how I ended up with a skinned knee yesterday. I haven't had one of those for years. It was wonderful. So I went to the gym to make a story. First things first, so I took off my glasses, ostrichlike, because if I can't see them, they can't see me, and more importantly, if I know I can't see them I won't feel guilty about looking at them because I can't. Look at them, that is, not feel guilty. I can do that just fine. That's also why I go the gym late, just before it closes. Fewer people to worry about not looking at. I worried about keeping them open until close to close too, so I asked, to be safe, and they said it's ok. But I make sure I'm never the last one there anyway.
So I went to the gym to make a story. It's about a rainbow Sargasso of floating plastic bits in the Pacific, swept together into a islandlike mat, where people live and walk around on big woven plastic snowshoes (for plastic, not snow) to keep from falling through to the things that live beneath. Sort of like Gilligan's Island meets the Snow Crash Raft. It's got problems with anemone slugs, and dreams from a pearl, and it may fit inside another story I have, all Arabian Nights-like, and I'll probably never write this one down. I feel like writing a story down kills it like pinning a butterfly to a board. Ends all the Choices. But this one was just about right. I told it to myself, and went back and rewound and played through the bits with Choices again, and things happened differently, and it felt alive because it wasn't the same dead story yet, nailed to a board. And then the machine started beeping at me. I squinted down and saw something scroll by about maximum heart rate before the machine went limp. So I was done, with the story and the running.
Rainbow Sargasso, slugs, dreams of a pearl, beeping machine. I decided I wanted to get salsa and milk. On the way to Woodman's, I realized that the gas I would burn would add a nontrivial bit to the cost of my meager food, and that I hadn't even recognized the Choice that was there when I decided to go to the giant anonymous store instead of the tiny Mexican grocery more directly on my way home. I realized I didn't even know if it was open, in five years of driving past it I had never even looked at the hours.
I went to the giant anonymous store. While I was walking through the coffee & tea isle on my way to the checkout, I saw a woman there out of the corner of my eye. I didn't really look at her, just saw that she was sort of small. Immediately, I began to make mental excuses for looking at her, as if I had - explaining to the default authority that I justify everything to that she looked like an ex-girlfriend, only not anymore, because I had been comparing her to a memory and the ex-girlfriend was older now, so really I had meant no harm, I just get lost in my mind so easily and hadn't realized that it was wrong. Only I don't know what she looked like, because I never looked at all. I used the automated checkout machine on the way out. I've never liked them, always afraid that I'm going to scan something wrong and get arrested, or worse yet, that the machine will beep and draw the ire of the person who minds their herd. On the way out the machine next to mine started to call for the herd minder. I didn't stay to see how it ended.
I went to the Mexican grocery store on my way home. Decided that maybe I could see both pages. Said Hello and Thank You to the woman behind the counter, avoided stepping on the small child on the way out. It was nice talking to someone, even if when she said her pleasantries I didn't know if they were words to her or just sounds. Still, it was nice interacting with someone in person today not as a gnome. I was initially a bit surprised that they didn't have decent salsa, but then I realized that the people that shop there probably just buy the parts and make their own. I could have done that, but I had a platonic ideal of salsa that I wanted, and I don't feel comfortable creating things. I can't get over the feeling that making something kills all the Choices of things that weren't made. That stupid refusal to create is probably my worst flaw. But I had salsa already anyway.
Well, that was interesting. I held on to most of my thoughts. Usually I'll get a nice little pile of them, then something shiny will distract me and they'll go fluttering off like petals in the wind. That's why I have piles of paper around that say things like
vampire hunting in the Smithsonian
with two mooks and Galahad
in the latrine
waiting to dim door away
I don't know what it meant, but it's the sad, storyless corpse that's left when I try to nail a dream to paper before it gets away.
Anyway, Iron Man was pretty good. He'd make an excellent spokesman for National Heart Health Month, or American Heart Month, or Heart Month. I don't know why they're explicitly not the same, and I'm sure that there's a story there, but it's not one I'd like to know.