The rigmorale of setting up a new computer can be so disheartening. At least in my case.... while the newer macBooks come all pimped out with the technologies that any web programmer would want, these sweet, internal programs don't come turned on. The first time around I found this a little frustrating. After having my brand new macBook stolen the day after New Year's in Vancouver BC, picking up yet another laptop & now going through the same process all over again.... this is effing hell. Apple, please, if you're going to ship your comps with all these whistles & bells, why not turn them on (especially considering that a good deal of people are buying these freakin' things just for this reason)? It isn't that we can't go through the process of activating all the features that we want, but why should we have to? This is like buying a new car, spending a whole day driving 'round & having fun with it, only to realize as the sun sets that you have to install the headlights yourself. poopid, i say.

The one thing I always find interesting 'bout moving my self to another computer is going through old files which you had left to rust on the old machine. In the spirit of a spring cleaning, when starting fresh with a new computer I like to go through all my old files, blowing off the dust, scratching away the patina.

In the melancholy vein of what I've been reading on some other Eugene bloggers sites, I thought I'd post this one file I found; I think I wrote this some eight months ago or so. Still, it pretty much sums up where I am any more.

I could have tackled it had it not been smarter than me. Being born from me, it knew how I’d work. So it spent most of its time hidden away. It would come around, make a day or two miserable, & then quickly disappear, taking all evidence of its self with it. & this is how we cultivate sorrow, or at least something synonymous with sorrow.

Now I study earlobe structure on the back of faceless heads ahead of me, waiting in line for a cup of coffee & some pasta salad. I eavesdrop on other’s conversations just to remind myself that people do things that I do not. People visit states like Illinois. People move across town to be closer to their grandmothers. People watch television shows on ABC. These people’s earlobe structures are never right.

I’ve never before so strongly wanted something to come home to. A pet, a roommate, a lover; a television show on ABC. Something that will speak to me, something that will empathize, something that I can take to coffee shops with me, to assist in the search. I wish crosswords could read my mind, I wish they could tell me Hot or Cold or Warmer as I attempted to solve them, giving me a clue, perhaps a “rhymes with” when I’m stumped. I wish crossword answers would acrostically spell out the names of people I love.

There are only so many times that I can find reminders of past passions & impetuses, of all these past lives, through re-intonating stranger’s laughs, by re-calculating the distance between their eyes, until I have recreated in everyone a figment of someone else. There are only so many puzzles & searches & games of Hot & Cold that I can play before I am the bet at stake. There are only so many windows I can look out remembering views shared with others before I forget what was looked at; there are only so many streets I can walk down remembering hands held before I forget the context of the walk.

(There is only so much that hyperbole can accomplish.)

Every now & then, I’ll buy Export A greens & relive my life one cigarette at a time. I’ll remember Sunday afternoons spent chain smoking in a rocking chair, a radio tuned into a two hour long first-wave ska program. I’m in north Idaho, Sandpoint Idaho, living in a singlewide with my surrogate punkrock mom & her three-year old child. As I chain-smoke the tray fills with ash & butts & Caitlyn, the three-year old, scolds me for not fully putting out my cigarettes. She goes through the entire process of snuffing out a butt, educating me, her still infantile hands more adroit already than my shaky ones. I watch her performance, humming along to Desmond Dekker, completely unaware of how many times over my heart will feel broken, unaware of how many eyes my eyes will search.

I’ve become an armchair anthropologist. In my dreams I’ve been published in a few note-worthy scientific journals.