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fancy Indian dinner in La Jolla
Friday, January 22 1999
I guess the Brazilian girls have their clock set a few minutes slower than actual time, because leaving their place this morning, the sun seemed just a bit higher in the sky than usual. And all the joggers I normally encounter along the way were either much further along on their routes or else heading back the wrong way. It turns out I was running a good twenty minutes late, but there's nothing unusual about that in the Engineering Department these days. We're all overworked. But there are limits. When the boss tried to encourage me to come in again this Saturday, I had to put my foot down and assert my need for a weekend.
Remember my discussion of the "Energy" ceremony that happens at the end (assuming for the sake of this description that there actually is an end) of every work week? It's the ceremony in which we all go around and attribute an energy boost to one or more of our colleagues. This week lots of people attributed energy boosts to the entire web development team (of which I am an integral part), but in addition to that, some people singled me out for energy all by myself. The irritatingly hyper-involved member support girl, who always orchestrates the energy ritual, keeps a running tally of those who have been recognized for giving the most energy, and at the end of the Energy, that person is celebrated by being made to "skip about the room." This week, for better or for worse, that person was me. Given my overall attitude, one could see this as somewhat ironic development. Alternatively, this "victory" could be viewed as yet more evidence of my sellout to the forces of corporate and romantic oppression. By the way, the person to whom I attributed my energy boost this week was the tea-totaling Chinese networking guy. I said that he'd given me energy by "regaling me with tales of debauchery and decadence on his weekend travels to Los Angeles." He'd done nothing of the sort, of course, but I still can't take part in these feel-good corporate rituals without subverting them any way I can.
Back at home with Kim, we were visited by Joe the next door neighbor. We sat around smoking pot and talking about various things. Looking over at my computer's screen saver, it suddenly occurred to me that screen savers of the future might start to take on the attributes of household pets. The way I put it to Joe and Kim was thus:
Some day the fish in the screen saver will actually start to act like real fish, darting back into the distance, and perhaps lingering for a time directly in front of the screen staring out at us. They might respond to sound inputs from the sound card and perhaps occasionally do intelligent acts that no real fish can do, like swimming in a pattern that describes the motions required to write our names.
I often feel like I can see into the future, especially with regard to technology, whenever I smoke pot. If this is a talent at all, it's an addictive one. Still, I don't usually crave pot and would thankfully quit smoking it if I were to suddenly relocate to a different culture.
Kim drove me up through Mission Beach and Pacific Beach to the hilly oceanside town of La Jolla. We went to a fancy Indian restaurant and ate a fancy meal, precisely the sort of Friday night she loves best. I figured I owed it to her since I've been gone so much of late. Still, it always hurts me to blow money on dinner. I certainly don't feel like I'm getting any real benefit from such expenditure.
After dinner we walked down to the edge of the world and watched the huge waves coming from across the world to slam into solid American rocks. It's serves some kind of existential mental function to occasionally watch the churning, boiling angry ocean and recognize the futility of it all.
On the way home, Kim drove me through the extremely fancy oceanside neighborhoods of La Jolla, oohing and ahhing about the fancy architecture and delightful scenery. I had nothing to say, of course, since to me it's all a depressing metastasization of the human cancer. I wouldn't want to join this party, to keep up with these Joneses, though it's clear to me that, some day when the chips come in, she would. My silence made her angry, and she started bitching about she knew I was judging her and then defending her desire to eat at the fancy Indian restaurant.
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