The Social Hell of Sam's Club

I don't find enjoyment in running into people I know at a supermarket. Well, that's not true, I like running into friends that I know are either my intellectual equal or better. Or someone about whom I hold fond, unthinking feelings for. A short conversation ensues, a bit of semi-awkward small talk that still leaves me with a smile is alright. If I run into them again, I've had my interaction and they've enjoyed/endured theirs and we're allowed, socially, to pass each other by with nothing more than a smile between us as we reach for sugary cereal.
But it's the people I merely know of, but do not know personally that open up the gates to a never-ending nightmare of furtive glances and quick eye evasions. The wary, uncomfortable stares of whoever that person is with because you know them, apparently, but they don't know you, you creeper. This reaction is even worse when family is involved.

Sometimes I go to sleep, and I hope to not wake up and to be quietly forgotten.

Other times I wake up in the middle of the night and quietly get out of the bed. I don't wake anyone up as I get ready to go out. I put on my clothing, I put on my shoes, and I walk out to my van in the middle of the night. Then I drive off. Beyond the lights of town, or any porch or street lamp, I find as quiet and dark a place as I can. Once there, I turn off the headlights, and then I switch off the engine. I sit stock-straight in my car seat, my hands on the wheel, and being able to see nothing yet with my eyes wide open I hope I am quietly forgotten.
 I can feel the bottom of my eyes sting as I do that. I'm ready to cry, but I don't let myself because I can't. I just wait and I hope that everything forgets about me, even myself.
It's never worked of course. At least so far. One of two things happens, I either fall asleep and I wake up in my van ready to go about my day, or the sun comes up. I don't know which is worse. If I fall asleep, I pretend nothing happened. If the sun comes up, and I can see things again I break down and cry silently. My eyes burn and I grab the steering wheel in front of me so tightly that my hands hurt. The pain brings me back and I stop crying.
In either case, I go to the Jack in The Box and order four tacos for two dollars. I park and eat them in the van before either going on with my day or heading home. I heard that processed cheese can mimic certain endorphins in the brain, because they make me feel better.

I don't know why I'm sharing, but I don't want to drive out tonight for tacos.

On the Value of Distractions

It's been a while. I don't care.

Distractions, I've come to realize, are life. Or, at least, the secret to keep on living. At the very real risk of sounding like a pretentious asshole, once you peel away the various demands that you have to your attention life seems kind of... pointless. I guess this isn't anything new, it's kind of reminiscent of the existential crises nihilists seem to run into over and over. I don't think I'm a nihilist, but it's getting harder to hold onto the illusion of having a place in a world full of arbitrary rules that I never agreed to. Reality, as they say, is a bitch, but fucking money isn't any more real than an agreement made between two old guys hundreds of years ago.

Bleh. I'm sounding stupid now, going to stop.

Something Different: A Theoretical Physics Model

Apparently the speed of gravity is still not known. Or, at least my mother thinks so and I'm too lazy to go out and do the research to see if that's still true or not. But I'm not too lazy to engage in some intellectual masturbation and come up with a workable, nightmarish-ly expensive physics experiment to find out.

It all starts by sending up two big objects into space, one significantly bigger than the other. Both of these objects have atomic clocks upon them and these clocks run for a bit and their measurements are compared to account for time dilation, because these clocks (and thus getting accurate readings from them) are all important.
The smaller object is put into an orbit around the larger object, and using a fixed point, a sensor suite on the smaller object keeps track of this orbit.
Now, we change things. We throw off a segment of the larger object, maybe blow off a quarter of its mass. Or! We put an engine on it and then cause it to be moved violently from its previous position, making sure that the reactive mass being ejected by the engine does not directly interact with the smaller object.
And then with the atomic clocks we record the time it takes for the smaller object to react to the change in the larger object. Considering that the larger and the smaller objects aren't tied together by any other force other than gravity as the smaller object orbits the larger, measuring the time between the action of the change in the larger object and the reaction of the smaller object will give us the speed of gravity.
If gravity is instantaneous as proposed by Newton then the smaller object will, of course, react instantly to the change. If, however, gravity is limited to the speed of light as mathematically worked out by Einstein, then there will be a minute lag. If it's slower, though, we'll still know, if it faster than light... then some interesting possibilities present themselves, don't they?

My dad says I might be reinventing the wheel, but I don't really care. It's a solid theoretical model given what I know about physics.

I am what I am and here's why.

I am a frothing liberal for a reason. And not because I have much faith in people doing the right thing 'just because.' I'm actually a cranky cynic, cruel, capricious, and a firm believer in disproportionate response. But elsewhere, I've also described myself as a principled man, and my posts hint at some ultimate goal of betterment for myself and world.

My worldview, therefore, is either nuanced or inconsistent. Possibly both, fuck off.

A unifying theme, does emerge, though: I don't believe in the meritocracy of conservativism, that's the thing. I can't. Life doesn't work like that, and it never has. You scrimp, you save, you deny, and you learn and then what happens? An uncaring universe keeps on grinding on. You get shot in a drive-by, or you and your loved ones all die in a car crash (or worse, you don't all die, leaving some with a gaping hole that might never heal). You might get passed over for that promotion again. Or, taking a page from recent news, you could be in Osaka and a quake pumps a few million gallons of water up your butt. Ultimately, what I'm trying to convey, is that what you do doesn't matter, and those who give a crap about you are far and away outnumbered by those who don't.

So why am I a socialist and liberal, though? I made you read all that I still haven't just outright stated it. Fine. I'm a socialist because I know how helpless I am regarding my fate and so know that to get anywhere I need others. I'm a liberal because I know just how shitty the world is, how shitty it can be, and how uncomfortable I'd become if the world backslid or social, technological, and socio-philosophical awareness were to stagnate or even regress. It's a selfish liberalism, in that my comfort is more important than the mental peace of others, but it's still a liberalism because I try to at least reciprocate in a way that people can respect. If people can respect a person or situation, they can accept them even if they disagree with them.

I hope that made sense. Now I need to think up a way to frame this jizz/meritocracy metaphor that's been buzzing around in my head.

Time Away and An Unfortunate Indulgence

Let's see. It's been a while, my loyal, non-existent readership. Let's try to remember everything that's happened between now and the last time I posted.

Tunisia's revolution.
Egypt's revolution.
NPR exec's being pushed out for speaking the truth.
Me giving up looking for those links to a two year old radio story.
Our public discourse getting ever so slightly less psychotic.
Libya's revolution, and its proving that America is fucked if one little unstable tin-pot pit goes under.

And, of course most importantly because I saved it for last, I got in touch with the old evil and I liked it for only twenty minutes. "Fuck off, J." and I seemed to shatter a woman who seems to be on her last few threads anyway. Why'd I do it? The most immediate and self-serving answer that comes to mind is that she made me re-write a well thought out diatribe. Granted, I needed to re-write it anyway to show unsuspecting readers the sources for my usual brilliance, but she and another, H., took offense to swears. SWEARS! I know! It's so fraggling stupid, right? And I suppose that's why I was so angry about it. It wasn't that I was being criticized for the content of my thought, but the tone. Dunno why, but that's more infuriating than being proven wrong about something.

See? Neat and self-serving, the above. Too bad it's not true. I lashed out because I gave in, and I wanted her to know just how much I hated her guts... at that moment. The thing is, I have to be around her, and eventually though my animosity will cool, my words won't. They'll always be there. As a man who prides himself on knowing the power of the English language, I am spectacularly stupid with it sometimes and now I regret lobbing an f-bomb at her for no other reason than to see if it'd hurt her. It was petty and cruel, and I... don't want to be that.

Existential Crisis, anyone?

I mean, I just looked it up on Wikipedia. I mean, if that's not proof enough... I'm in class right now, and I looked it up while Greg is going on about the web resources to the new meat. God, I need to stop calling new students that.