I traveled with a friend to Ikea via ferry from Pier 11 near Wall St. The day was uncomfortably hot so being on the water was a nice escape. The “summer of concerning heat” continues now in early August. I’ve worn shorts to work daily since June and I have the deepest flip flop tan I’ve ever had.<\/p>\n
As it was a weekend day, Ikea was like an ant farm, and most of the ants were pregnant, and the rest were couples. “Oh honey, wouldn’t this be great on that little table you got from your sister?”\u00a0<\/em>I think I handled it all pretty well… for a time.<\/p>\n I felt the first pangs of crowd-induced discomfort about two hours in, which for me is a pretty good performance. But those pangs then grew in intensity until my attitude started to go bad.<\/p>\n I’m so anti-social sometimes. Mostly I’m fine with it, but sometimes if I’m with other people I wish my tendency to get tired out by being around other people was easier to control. Throughout my life there have been very few people I never got tired of. My last \u00a0serious girlfriend was one of those people. I could have spent days on end with her without a break. And in fact, that happened a few times, and that was a first for me.<\/p>\n When I travel I get high off the feeling of sensory overload. But here at home I get antsy and need to start flipping switches off to stay functional. It’s the result of taking in too much information for too long. I think it’s hard for people to understand.<\/p>\n You know how you can go through your day and pay attention to important things and everything else is just automatically passed through, a hazy blur in your memory? There’s no blur for me. The shape and feel of the doorknob you used to get out of your house this morning– \u00a0I paid attention to that thing, against my will. \u00a0It made me feel something, think of something and remember something, and it made me wonder something that I’ll ask you about later. That person you passed on the street who you didn’t notice? I noticed. The slight waiver in the voice of the woman who said hi to you that you didn’t realize meant she was feigning happiness? I realized it. And after hours of that kind of absorbing, I need to flip the inputs off, or they get flipped off for me.<\/p>\n That’s just how I was made.<\/p>\n I never wanted a “normal” living room. It reminds me of complacent middle-class TV culture and gives me chills. Couch, “Loveseat” (what a shitty name), rug and “coffee table”, TV and “end tables”. \u00a0Just thinking about it sends both testicles in search of self-preservation. \u00a0I want to come home to an empty room, maybe with some spilled paint on the floor. Maybe mixed with some blood and sweat drops.<\/p>\n The first thing I did with the newly assembled “coffee table” from Ikea was paint it. I needed to make it mine somehow. I could have shot big wads of cum all over it…<\/p>\n But instead I began painting with actual paint, and as I moved onto painting and repainting other things, I felt better about the purchases and my environment.<\/p>\n I built and painted until the Mars Rover Landing live coverage began at 1:30am. It was incredible to follow, and if you haven’t been paying attention to it, you’re seriously missing out. The basic event: 8 years ago we started working on a research jeep and 8 months ago we shot it on a rocket to Mars, and last night it blasted through the Martian atmosphere, descended via parachute, and then a rocket-powered hovering platform with a crane on it slowly lowered the jeep, named Curiosity, down to the surface of the planet.<\/p>\n There was a landing party in Times Square last night to celebrate this event… it was the most extraordinary accomplishment in NASA history after landing on the moon and will change human history forever. It was hard to fall asleep after listening to the live coverage.<\/p>\n I listened to the cheers from the command center at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasendina via live stream. People were crying and screaming with joy and my own throat soon started to ache. 8 years of work and the chances of failure were very high, and failure meant ending the entire Mars program… and they had a perfect landing. Celebrate the hell of that if you can.<\/p>\n ——————————————————<\/p>\n Tomorrow I’m teaching a seminar for three straight hours in the morning so won’t be able to post until afterwards and I’ll be preparing for that between now and then. Save for some good training this afternoon. I’ll explain it all soon.<\/p>\n Enjoy Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I traveled with a friend to Ikea via ferry from Pier 11 near Wall St. The day was uncomfortably hot so being on the water was a nice escape. The “summer of concerning heat” continues now in early August. I’ve … Continue reading I always used to wonder if she was aware of that.<\/h6>\n
(But don’t if you’ve been celebrating other things for no reason, for you have in that case diminished the value of celebration too much and instead you should go meditate on a lake or something.)<\/h6>\n