Loser
MONDAY
Anatole's Lexus has a vertical slot in its dashboard. It's a coffee cup holder that pops out and does this flip-flip-flip origami thing-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh--and becomes horizontal.
Karla and I went out around sunset and had coffees and sat in the car. This was the highlight of the day, so you can imagine how dull the day was.
Stocking staffers: I bought these red "panic buttons" at Weird Stuff, the computer surplus store across from Fry's on Kern Street in Sunnyvale. It's a fake IBM button with adhesive tape on the back that you're supposed to tape on to your board and push whenever you're feeling "wacky."
I felt really sad for the panic buttons, because panic seems like such an outdated, corny reaction to all of the change in the world. I mean if you have to be negative, there's a reasonable enough menu of options available-disengagement-atomization-torpor-but panic? Corrrrrrny.
I mentioned to Abe about my lessons in shiatsu and the weird relationship people in tech firms can have with their bodies. He replied:
I know what you mean about bodeis. At Microsoft you pretend bodies dont' exist . . . BRAINS are what matter. You're right, at Microsoft bodies get down played to near invisibilty with unsensual Tommy Hilfiger geekwear, or are genericized with items form the GRP so that employees morph themelfves into those international symbols for MAN and WOMAN you see at airports.
Susan got a job offer from General Magic-that guy she chatted up at the Halloween party recommended her-and Todd got a job offer from Spectrum HoloByte. At first I couldn't imagine why-then he told us that
someone at the gym must have recommended him. It's occupational cannibalism here. Both offers are tempting. But Susan's got too much money stoked into the Oop! fire to leave, and Todd's simply too into it. But it's nice to know that if Oop! flushes the toilet, there's a Plan B ready. Oop! isn't about work. It's about all of us staying together.
TUESDAY
We ate lunch in Chinatown up in SFO today, and there were these paper birds strung from the ceiling and this little kid who wanted to touch the birds and his father lifted him up to touch them. I didn't realize, but I was staring at the whole thing the whole time, and zoned out of the conversation, and then I realized Karla was watching me.
Time time time. It's such a current subject. It's like money-if you don't have it, you think about it too much.
Karla's been thinking about time, too. Tonight during shiatsu training, with me flat on my stomach, my back and sides being poked and pummeled, her voice, disconnected from her body, informed me that in general, "One's perception of time's flow is directly linked to the number of connections one has to the outer world. Technology increases the number of connections, thus it alters the perception of having 'experienced' time.
"It's a bell-curve relationship. There's actually an optimum point at which the amount of technology one owns extends the amount of time one perceives or experiences.
"It's as if your brain holds a tiny, cashew-shaped thalamus going tick-tick-tick while it meters out your time dosage for you. There's a technological equilibrium point, after which, it's all downhill."
Abe e-mailed a response to my time stuff:
Once you've used your brain flat-out, you can't go into the SLOW mode. You can't drive an Infinite J-38 and then get downgraded to an Daewoo. Brains don't work that way.
WEDNESDAY
This morning Dad was singing "Road to Nowhere." Michael is reprogramming my father. I have to figure out a way of dealing with this.
Whenever Anatole gets too European and insufferable-complaining too much, basically-we say to him, "Hey, Anatole, your turtleneck's showing." He doesn't get this particular joke. "But I am not wearing a turtleneck..."
Anatole told us this really great thing, how at Apple they used to have a thing called RumorMonger that allowed employees to anonymously input up to one hundred ASCII characters worth of gossip into the system. So Todd hacked together a quick in-house version for our network, called Rumor-Meister. It got way out of control almost immediately:
1) SUSAN SHOPS AT TARGET BUT PUTS HER STUFF IN NORDSTROM BAGS
2) DANIEL SELLS HIS USED BOXERS VIA MAIL ORDER . . . $5.00 PER DAY OF WEAR
3) BUG SWEATS TO THE OLDIES
4) DAN . . . THOSE DOCKERS . . . HIP!
5) TODD HAS SAGGY NIPPLES FROM TOO MUCH BODY BUILDING THEY'RE CALLED 'BITCH TITS'
5) TODD WEARZ DEPENDS WHEN HE BENCH PRESSES BECUZ UTHERWIZE HE'LL EVACUATE HIS BOWELS ON THE BENCH
7) KARLA PAID TO SEE "THE BODY GUARD"
8) BUG LAUGHS AT GARFIELD CARTOONS
9) KARLA CAN'T ACCESSORIZE
10) SUSAN HAS COMBINATION SKIN
11) TODD SMOKES 'MORE' CIGARETTES
12) I CAN HEAR KARLA'S COLOSTOMY BAG SLOSHING
13) ETHAN'S FERRARI IS A KIT CAR
14) ETHAN BUYS TIRES AT SEARS
15) BUG LOVES BARNEY
16) KARLA THINKS SHE'S A SUMMER BUT SHE'S REALLY A FALL
17) BUG HAS 2 RAFFI CASSETTES
18) DAN HAS A YANNI CD IN HIS CAR
19) ETHAN'S VISA LIMIT IS $3,000
20) SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY
21) DAN: LISTERINE KILLS GERMS THAT CAN CAUSE BAD BREATH
22) DAN STILL LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER
23) BUG SHOPS AT CHESS KING
24) MICHAEL'S SHIRT SMELL LIKE GERBIL PEE
Todd quickly removed the program from the system.
Ethan had a time crisis. "I look at my Daytimer and see: CES in January, COMDEX in May, Tim's wedding in July, etc., and I realize the whole year is over before it's even begun. What's the point of it all? It's all of it so predictable."
Mom won a swim meet this afternoon, so we dug out the nickels from under the seat cushions and went out for a low-fat dinner to celebrate. She's so fit these days.
I was driving down from the 280, down Peter Coutts Road, up by Systemix, Wall Data, IBM, Hewlett Packard, and the Wall Street Journal printing plant-up where Dad used to work before he was rendered obsolete-and who should I see taking a stroll together but Dad and Michael! They were lost in discussion, their arms donnishly held behind their backs.
I pulled the car into a side street and ran out to join them. Upon hearing me yell their names, they turned around, absentmindedly interrupted, utterly unfazed at seeing me. I asked what they were doing and Dad said, "Oh, you know-cjust taking a stroll past the old hunting grounds" (IBM).
Cars hummed by. A tech firm's lawn sprinkler spritzed. I didn't know what to say, surrounded by all these blank buildings with glassed-out windows, these buildings where they make the machines that make the machines that make the machines.
I began walking up the hill with them and shortly we were in front of IBM. I felt humiliated for my father, because surely there'd be employees behind the reflecto windows saying, "Oh look, it's Mr. Underhill stalking us. He must have really lost it."
But Dad seemed unfazed. I said, "Dad, how can you even look at those people?"
He replied, "You know, Daniel, I have noticed that people are generally quite thrilled to have change enter their lives-disasters are weathered by people with a sturdiness that is often unlike their day-to-day personality."
Michael piped in, "Just think of the Mississippi River floods. All those people having barbecues up on their roofs, waving to the CNN helicopters- having a grand old time."
"Precisely," said Dad. "I've realized that people most dread the thought of actually initiating change in their lives and we old people are obviously the worst. It's hard coping with chaos and diversity. We old folks mistake the current deluge of information, diversity, and chaos as the 'End of History.' But maybe it's actually the Beginning."
This sounded like Michael-style words coming out of my father's mouth. Brainwashed!
He continued. "Old people have more or less dropped out of the process of creating old-fashioned-style history. We've been pushed to the side, and nobody's pointed out to us what we, the newly obsolete humans, are supposed to do."