8-26-01

Last night, at a party:

Me: "I see you're serving Tab. I didn't realize you could even get Tab anymore. You could probably have auctioned that on Ebay for a lot of money."

Edie: "We were lucky to find it." To the woman from Germany "You don't have Tab in Germany do you?"

German woman shakes her head no.

Me: "Europeans don't drink as much soda as Americans. They drink lots of coffee or tea."

Edie: "Tim was ADDICTED to tea. He had to have 3 cups of tea a day, or he couldn't function."

Me: "Oh yeah. Once you get hooked, nobody better get in your way. You'll start beating up old people for spare change. Breaking into grocery stores at two in the morning." I start slurring my words, "Whatever it takes to get that next tea fix."

Edie: "You know, tea was first drunk in Europe only by the very wealthy. It was kept aside for special occasions. Then when it became more easily available it trickled down to the lower classes."

Me, slurring even more: "Trickle down is a good word for it because when you're addicted to tea you spend a lot of time in the bathroom."

Everyone looks at me.

Me: "Man, you piss a lot."

Silence.

Sometimes I do shows just for myself.

I think living slowly would be nice. Taking slow walks, slow meals. Enjoying life without the hectic pace. In an ideal world, that would be nice. But there are so many things that need to be done, that I want to do, for which I don't have enough time. I can't get to that Zen place where the need for achievement is released. Sure, cut out the 50 hours of work a week (with commuting time, and that's on a slow week), and I might have more time to take my time. But, I suspect even then I'd be likely to pack my days, I'd just pack it with stuff I want to do.

Fred the Gargoyle. Continued.

Fred catches a whiff in the airwaves. A trace of molecules left by the passing of Dr. Odo, the scientist/programmer who encoded the consciousoftware that imprinted both Fred and his sister Trike Annabel. Fred crouches then leaps off the ledge into the sky, his massive rear legs pushing him into the ether. Gliding on radio waves, a dim shadow rippling past shiny, metal exoskeletons. He skillfully weaves his way through 20 megablocks until he reaches an apartment pod shaped like a tree with many hanging fruit. I zoom in behind him, a disembodied voyeur.

Most of the pods are opaqued, but a few are transparent showing the interiors. Each apartment is a sphere with four to five levels. Fred is sniffing again, floating near the pods. He stares into one of the transparent pods; inside, a man sits at a heavy marble table drinking from a wine glass. As the man stands up, the table sinks into the floor and vanishes. He takes his wine glass to the transparent wall of the pod, staring out at the lights of the city. As he lifts to a higher floor on a mobile floor pad, the walls turn slowly opaque. Fred settles on top of the building to wait.

previous || entry index || next