cummings and goings.

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dateline: the icebox

30 july 1996 9:56 p.m.

Just as I was closing up last night, I figured I'd wander the web a little. When the screen started looking a little fuzzy, I figured it was a signal to call it a night. Then, I started to smell something. I didn't even look at my stove. I already felt my stomach tightening. Then I saw something. At first I only noticed it out of the corner of my eye. Climbing upwards, twisting and curving, almost as if it had physical form. It didn't, of course, because it was smoke. A thin snake of pale white smoke. A something-very-expensive-is-burning kind of smoke. There's an unmistakable smell to a burning computer component. If I close my eyes, I can vividly recall what the SLIS lab smelled like when the old server gave up the ghost. Last night, that characteristic odor turned out to be a message from death.org: "Your monitor's time has come." The screen got more fuzzy. Then, within the course of a few seconds, developed kind of a snazzy wiggle (in relating this story to Greg today, he pointed out the absurdity of my just sitting and watching instead of turning the damn thing off, or ducking). Then, kind of a 'fop' sound and the picture -- just like in that old TV show ("Outer Limits"?) -- shrank quickly into a tiny dot. It was a very calming, very nicely-greenish dot. A dot that seemed to whisper, "Don't weep for me, for I am going to a better place." And then it disappeared. After a few helpless attempts to mouse the "shut down" command blind (not a good idea, as the "erase disk" command is right above it), I reached behind and actually used a mechanical switch to turn my computer off. So, my home computer is out of service for a while. Remember when I said people would have to be patient for me to get around to answering e-mail? Well, it's gonna be a bit more of a wait. Off-line mail readers, I've discovered, have many pitfalls. And even though I have Eudora set to keep messages on the PINE-accessible server, trying to reply to messages while connected the whole time could prove to be pretty expensive (commercial ISPs -- dontcha just love 'em?). I'll check for totally vital messages, of course, but any other reply -- although still guaranteed eventually -- will be some time coming. All this was my fault, of course. I never take care of any of my stuff -- no covers, regular dusting, sit-down cleanings. The monitor that just died was about the cheapest one Apple made, so I figured it couldn't take much of my regular abuse. I still love my Mac, though (see the new logo on my opening page?). I think some schools are giving away computers like mine (a IIsi -- 68030 at 20MHz, barely capable of running System 7), but it's never failed me. But enough geek talk. Greg and I had totally forgettable chicken katsu at the Campus Center cafeteria today while we picked through his life. I rarely actually eat in the cafeteria, but it was a beautiful day and the table we sat at was next to a huge window where you could see Diamond Head (but not the building where I lived, though I couldn't avoid the obvious cliche) and a bit of ocean. Things between he and Stan are cool again; Greg just told him to back off. All this came after a fight (quiet but intense, says he), which was followed by "really great make-up sex." I never finished my lunch. He also said he scanned his picture and had hidden a link somewhere on his page. It took me exactly a minute to find it. I'm such a stinker. (oZnote: Greg's a stinker too. He keeps changing the URL on me -- most recently on Aug. 8. So if it doesn't work, tell me. Don't worry... I'll find it again.) He went back to work, and I'm hanging in Hamilton. I finished typing up some E. E. Cummings poems from a book Jen loaned me and added them to my "fancy" page. I remember reading a couple of Cummings pieces in my sophomore English class. They never picked the good ones for the textbooks. Same thing with Shakespeare's sonnets, come to think of it. If there's any truth I've learned in my failed English studies, it's this: Since the dawn of time, humans have been horny. We were just more artsy about it back then. It's too cold here. I think I'll race home and have some instant cocoa with yummy rehydrated marshballs.