Virtual Illusions

Since I’ve gone to the effort of posting I should probably do an update dump sort of thing that I seem to do occasionally as if someone is listening. On the other hand more people might listen if I’d do them the courtesy for updating regularly.

Since in general I only post when stressed, upset, alienated or in some other way need a release one could interpret my silence for the last month as “wow it’s nice to know Todd is doing so well”. This would probably be the incorrect way of interpreting the event.

So on St. Patrick’s Day I turned 35. I didn’t really have the emotional resources to deal with it. I’ve been running on low if not empty for a long while now. I managed to arrange a work happy hour down at the Bricks because the idea of being alone was just too depressing. It was a decent enough time, even got Doug out (and the bastard bought me a lemon drop in the name of tradition). Got way too drunk. And there’s photographic evidence, very disturbing.

Had my party on the 25th and everything went according to plan. It was an enjoyable enough time all said but for me personally I contained a number of disappointments. In order:

A few hours before the beginning the party my friend of 5+ years who I was kissing in January and decided we couldn’t date (See February Post) (Here after referred to as M) emailed me to say she couldn’t make it with no elaboration. You will recall the tangible, measurable version of her promise to continue to be my friend took the form of promising to come to my party. Her choice not to come in all likelihood spells the practical end of our friendship. Not a big fight end, but an allowing it die on the vine. Our friends in common in the local area have dwindled to near nothing. Since she won’t accept invitations to talk to her in the hopes of normalizing our friendship, and she won’t come to parties as she’s done since I’ve known her, I can’t guess when or if I’ll ever see her again. I sort of think I should write a goodbye letter, but so far I’ve resisted. I did respond to her email that I was disappointed that she couldn’t make it. I wanted to write that I was disappointed that she chose not to come, but that still seemed like a tactical error.

At the party itself this was certainly the first party with no representation from either The Motley Fool era of my life or the AU era of my life (discounting Bo). I seriously considered ending the institution, but I don’t think I have the heart for it. The whole thing made me feel old, tired and alone.

I don’t want to take away from those who did show up we had a lovely time but the above meta-issues had me too close to collapse throughout the whole night. I stayed remarkably sober, because I lacked the strength to be drunk, it probably would have been ugly.

Bo left for El Salvador Sunday morning at like 5am or something. I should email him about the hot water heater exploding. Not sure that it significantly affects him but it seems appropriate.

Only other interesting thing that I can recall is that my cherry blossom tree (or close enough) started dropping its petals a couple of days ago. My street is lined with them and with them all falling it has a very snowfall like effect.

Life

I was playing some WoW last night and decided I needed a beer. So I head down to the basement where all the good beer is, and as I approach the bottom of the stairs I hear the telltale sounds of running water. Then as my I put my foot down on the floor it makes a squishing sound.

Turns out my hot water heater exploded. I spent the rest of Friday night moving everything that one person could move out of the basement. Slept for three hours at got up before 6am. Picked up some day laborers and spend the morning destroying my pride and joy, the basement bar. It only took 4 hours to completely destroy it.

Carpet ripped up and thrown out the back, all the furniture up on stilts with bunches of fans doing the air circulation thing. Plus no hot water until Monday (assuming no complications, heh). Oh, and I’m leaving town on Tuesday and need to show up at work sometime Monday.

My patience is being sorely tried.

On the upside 24 hours later I’ve finally got that beer and my mother is thrilled, she’s wanted me to get new carpet for years.

Life

The invite that I sent out. If you didn’t get a copy any you know where I live chances are it was an oversight and you’re probably invited (except if you’re a relative). I feel my invite list is probably a bit out of date these days.

===========

What: Celebration of Broken Mirrors and True Things
When: March 25th, 8PM
Where: [Address Snip]
How: See Below
Why:

I reach for the mirror and I should feel something, even if that thing is my mirror twin’s hand. I should feel its fingertips, cold and smooth, but they should be there. I am denied even that. My mirror sits empty. Where my soul should be, where my presence should be out in the real world, where depth should be, there is only the emptiness.

I press my hand against the barrier between worlds, the barrier between the inside world and the outside world. The barrier between the life I live and the life I should live. I bring my fist smashing against my prison door. It thuds dully, but is otherwise unimpressed.

I smash and smash and thrash. I cry and rage against the window to the real world, but it denies me. I open my mouth and try and wail, but there is only silence. My eyes burn.

My head crashes against the mirror. My blood shot eyes look through the mirror to the other side. The Great Gallery is filled with other windows into other souls. Other mirrors. The Gallery in the real world is empty of those solid figures of depth but the mirrors each hold the souls of the men and women who should be there.

I look at them through through three worlds. I know I need to escape from my prison and commune with my fellow prisoners. I can see in their eyes and know that they seek their own freedom as well. The mirror laughs. I can feel it sneering at me, mocking me, playing its game.

Then I hear it, a sound that moves between worlds and echoes through the gallery and a thousand private souls and prisons. It is the first sound I’ve ever heard here in my two dimensional world. It starts as a thrum, a low sound that the rattles the center. My true nature knows the sound, it has heard it before. It is the sound I think I should make when I try and scream. But it doesn’t come from in here, it isn’t from my throat, it comes from out there in the Gallery or beyond the Gallery in the other mirrors and souls.

I throw my head back and join in the sound. It starts as a feral howl, but before long it becomes a harmony and a rhythm. There’s my part and theirs. Each one telling a true story with their own singular truth. There’s the naivete of the beginning, of something starting. I allow it to wash over me spring from me. It becomes part of me, but at the same time it frightens me.

Then there is a silence that stretches for two and then three counts.

Then at the mirrored window I hear the raps and taps of someone knocking at my nature. There is the silence before the soul sounds begin again. The pitch increases until it isn’t so much heard as felt. Then there is the sound of claws on glass.

The cricking and creaking extends for two and then three counts.

Then there is the shattering of everything I know, broken into a thousand parts. All of us have our shards shattered across the gallery. I can see little pieces of mirrored glass spread across the marbled floor. My very nature is broken into a thousand parts and sent flying to the thousand parts of the others.

The pieces of soul come away from the shards. I can see the apparitions floating above their pieces. I begin to move among them, stopping to let essences touch. Knowing where others are the same as me, but also where
they possess a different nature.

As we move among each other the music begins again subtly changed as we are changed by our communion with our fellows. Our sense of togetherness overwhelms what we remember ourselves, but we become a new, true, thing. We celebrate our sense of belonging, our sense of knowing our sense of being free.

And so we move and belong from sunset to midnight. From midnight until the new sun burns away the illusions and and new truth burns before our eyes. Then tentatively one by one voices our made quiet as my companions retreat back into themselves. Soon it becomes it becomes hazy and I loose my sense of them.

When next my eyes opens it is morning and I am back in my soul. I am back in silence and I am alone. But at the same time I am not alone, I can close my eyes an conjure the true thing of belonging and it gives me comfort.

It ends as it began with memory and expectation of touching another.

In the name of the broken mirrors and the true thing, I ask that you join me in an event of spiritual definition. In future generations they will speak of what was made true when souls were let loose and came together. One of those nights approaches and we must lift our voice and play our part in becoming human and belonging to the song and story.

To that end I invite you to join me at a Celebration of Broken Mirrors to be held at my house on Saturday, March 25th at 8pm. Zen Brewism will provide a keg of Veritas Stout and a keg of Soulful Hefewiezen in addition to various other libations. The standard amount of chips, dips, vegetables and nuts shall be provided to the best of my ability and foresight.

As always, couches and floors can be yours for a night (they can’t leave the premises), but pillows and blankets are a commodity.

I welcome one and all and hope to see you there.

March 25th, 8PM at Todd’s Great Gallery
[Address Snip]

[Directions Snip]

See you there.

Life

I’m feeling undifferentiated feeling of self loathing tonight.

Very sad.

Life

Friday I channeled all the best writers and drank heavily while sketching out a rough draft for the Spring Party invite (which I’ll post shortly). I watched Crow while doing which is a pretty good film to watch while doing a party invite. It really is a classic.

Woke up in pretty good shape and managed to get a run in before heading to Fondue at S & T’s. This maybe the first time I’ve done Fondue as an adult. Food was good and wine flowed liberally. Had some good conversation but felt a little like the odd man out as I was the only one who wasn’t effectively married… or in anyway attatched to anyone.

Crashed there for a few hours and made my way home for a proper crash.

Woke up fairly hung over and generally not feeling very well. A feeling that stuck with me until last night. I was feeling queasy. Not really that disturbing but just generally unhappy with the idea of moving or eating or anything.

Ended up having lipton noodles last night to cure it. First time I’ve eaten dinner in a non-social context probably since a bit after Halloween. Didn’t feel good about it, but it had to be done. I can feel myself falling off the exercise/diet wagon. Not sure where to pull inspiration from.

Life, Media

So by all reports I’m an uncle today. My brother and sister in law had a daughter, Anna Sophie.

Life

So Thursday I didn’t get to sleep until about 4am. Got home around 2am and was considering some character creation issues (Yes I’m a geek.) So anyway I was dirt tired on Friday. When I got home I skipped running and just went to sleep and around 8pm. Woke up briefly at midnight before sleeping until around 9am.

That’s what you call a solid sleep.

Gaming, Life

It’s been a while since I posted anything but I really couldn’t think of anything that would be interesting to anyone but me, and I’m not sure if I would find it interesting. So I got back from my run and was largely thinking the same thing when it occurred to me that a quarter of my basement ceiling collapsed on Tuesday. That might be interesting to someone. That fact that it took me four days to realize that it was a postable event might color the idea that nothing noteworthy really happened.

So I took off Tuesday in accordance with my belief of ‘why have a three day weekend when you can have a four day weekend with a cost of just a single day off’.

First I went out and bought a yoyo. I was looking for your run of the mill duncan yoyo. They don’t seem to come that way anymore. They are all of the butterfly configuration and are adjustable to make them easier or harder to do tricks. I managed to find one a toys’r'us that wasn’t too disagreeable and it seems to work as advertised, though I still have no idea about this whole adjustment thing.

Anyway after doing that I went out to the home theater store and picked up a draper manual 106″ screen to replace the sheet that has been in my basement. I wanted to do it before the next party which will be toward the end of March. Since I wasn’t sure if it had to be ordered or you could just pick one up, not that I thought it could fit in my Prius, I figured I should get started on this project. As it turns out the store had one in stock and if some it sticks out the passenger window they do fit in the Prius.

So my basement has a drop ceiling and I was investigating how to mount the screen when there was a series of ‘poing’ like noises as 3 of the wires connecting the T-bars to the floor above came disconnected. I’m not sure how these things are supposed to be done but in my ceiling the wires are connected to (big, manly but essentially) staples connected to the plywood of the floor above. Three of the stables popped. Still calm I found a 2×4 and elevated it to the right height to support the now sagging T-bar and called my dad.

The upshot is everything is still okay, I just need to hammer the staples back in place and everything will be okay. I started working on getting one of the staples back in place. It was fairly impossible to reach between to joists as it was. Anyway in attempting to repair the damage the 2×4 fell down and about a quarter of my ceiling came down.

At this point I kind of freaked and called my dad again and he came over. Took down maybe 10-12 tiles and made a trip to home depot and bought screws with eyes instead of heads and replaced the staples with those, much easier to work with between the joists. Then wired up the T-bars and put in the crossbars. As an ‘Oh-God’ moment it wasn’t that hard to repair with two people. Maybe a couple or three hours.

After getting that fixed up we mounted the screen to the joists using S-hooks and turnbuckles connected to another BIG screw with an eye instead of head.

So after one kind of freaky night I destroyed and repaired by basement ceiling and managed to mount my screen so I don’t have to worry about bungee cords going everywhere keeping tension on the sheet.

Life, Media

The Moon was/is pretty full tonight, but I don’t seem to have turned into a werewolf, so that’s all good.

Life

So it’s really raining out there. Not just the little vague amounts of liquid water falling from the sky, but more sheets of water sort of rain. But I’ve been bad in regards to exercise this week and I generally like rain and it isn’t very cold so I just went and did my plan. I tend to do that a lot follow through with the plan ignoring obvious factors that should alter it.

The run wasn’t so bad but by the time I got back my clothes were like four times as heavy as when I left.

A neat effect of the rain was that when I was staring at my feet as I was running there was a shadow me doing the same thing under the road. The rain didn’t create a full on mirror where I could see details it just seemed to give my shadow a third dimension, reaching down under the road.

On a side note that might be an interesting icon for an invite. The stuck on the other side of the mirror thing, able to see everyone but forever apart. Maybe everyone has their own mirrors. A call for the breaking of the glass a coming together in shared space before being summoned back to our private mirrors again. It might work, I’ll have to think about it.

Almost went out to Dogfish Head last night but they close at midnight and it was already 11pm and I’d have to have taken a shower. I’m going to make an attempt to make it out there tonight. I’d really just like to watch some strangers, it can be very therapeutic.

Life