Against the odds
Right now Manchester works best for me if I consider it as one large hospital and the psychiatrists are trying to sell me a message. Being so close to the cemetary it's not a hard message to interpret. Although I do find the dead exceedingly good company. We sit together and share sandwiches and communicate in our way. But not much about this city is what it seems. I recently heard of one tourist who bemoaned the lack of privately run art galleries, but when you look hard enough you would be suprised what bit of the mundane suddenly turn into something else, including art galleries. Although being dead does appear to offer one certain priviledges when operating on family and other relatives.
One of the problems I'm currently toying with is a my friend of foe system; part of a form of sophisticated conceptual modeling that's more than just a spelling mistake; conceptually speaking it's quite a ride. As with anything which pops-up in my mind these days the effect on my children is where I can really see the oddness. They shared most of their past weekend with me.
Max got the award for Communication Most Likely to Disbelieved. What he said was "outside; brother; non-hostile". I think it was a reaction to Zac being required to wear a red tie earlier that day. But that Max said it in context with regards to another conversation is what really had me laughing. His expression really was a camera moment, he looked so proud he'd managed to get me to hear him.
Alex presented me with a box of the dimensions I was thinking of the week before. Then she was sufficiently evil all day to provide targeting information. Tagging Max as 'Evil Genus' early on in proceedings. She also supplied sufficient intel for me to spot where obscure bits of previous behaviour patterns came from. That it came from there and once effected me in that way has ramifications way beyond the word unfair. I walked the plank a bit for that one.
Zac was, I gave him thirty pieces of silver and he commented on the fact I'd just given him enough for a packet of cigarettes. Events had tagged him red so he got ganked by grandmothers all day. I helped him tag a pirate and threw in a hanged-man and watched as the situation escalated. Caught echoes of it all through the day. Making my experience of the whole day one I'm not likely to forget. Although lobbing nukes at wizards from church is behaviour not likely to be repeated.
I suspect someone somewhere knows the extent to which not normal applies to me and mine. Which is why worldly interpretation of my case seem to be misrepresenting me in a manner where my access to my children may be legally curtailed. Even when I'm with them I can sense a presence restricting the parameters by which I may interact with them. It's not pleasant but it's a fact of life. Still, the parameters are able to change to a remarkable degree now. Sometimes something that shouldn't even gets through; I suspect the baby-sitter gave me the cold shoulder all night becasue of what we'd done; or was that her mother.
Since before I even met you.
Having just having just watched the repeat of Doctor Who late one Sunday evening I was sitting there, staring out the window, when my cat piped-up.
"Have you concidered writing dialouge?"
I was most startled. It was almost as if she was reading my mind.
"No, why?"
"No reason. It's just that you're wondering what you can do."
"Oh, Miss 'I can't read your mind'" thinking that nested quotes drive me spare, "you know this how?"
"Well," said my cat - pausing only to lick a paw, "sitting staring at your screensaver for more than thirty seconds usually means you're thinking 'what' kind of thoughts."
"Oh it does, does it?" I was getting irritated. Using her ears to punctuate does that to me. Not sure why. Envy I suppose.
"Anyway, I was thinking," she said, looking at me with big sad eyes, "perhaps dialouge would be a clever way of overcomming your fear of punctuation."
"I'm not afraid of punctuation!"
"Yes you are. And reading that Panda punctuation book didn't help."
"'Eats shoots and leaves'?"
"Yes. And your education didn't help"
"It didn't"
"No, see you never realised that the point was to learn stuff; you really did think the point was to get the highest marks; And you and I both know you could never really summon-up the enthusiasm to care about that"
Well I started wondering about normality.
"And?"
Well I've come to the conclusion that I'm atypical.
Great, so that makes you better than everyone else?
No. Because I've also decided that everyone is atypical; that words like 'typical' and 'average' only work when you consider the big picture; when you get down to the individual it all falls to pieces. It's a bit like quantum physics.
Is drawing parallels to physics in argument really necissary?
Well, no. it just sort of happens.
Hmm. particle-memetics; quantum-sociology; what next?
Not only that but I've also come to the conclusion that all concepts of 'right' and 'wrong' are arbitrary beause the drepend of fundamental assumptions which are little more than value-judgements.
"I'm a cat," my cat said as she stood and stretched. "I know the secret of the universe."
"Which is?"
"card-board."
"CARD-BOARD!?
"Yep; now, if you'll excuse me I need to go sit by my food bowl until you remember to feed me," as she flicked her tail and wandered off muttering something about 'Staff'.
It's been two years since I wrote this. Only now do I see what she meant. And now I see I knew it all along. I just didn't know I knew. Now I have a name for the ghost in my machine; together we'll find each other; My number is seven.
Playing CHess
Here's how it goes. For every dimension you add in trying to explain it it adds a dimension in trying to understand it. So, when it blew my mind I created a better way. Twenty-nine dimension, that's your limit. I've been to Thirty-one and just getting back killed me. Twenty-nine in six dimensions works too. We'll just call it Foo; mother knows best after all.
Somebody showed me what they expect to see in the future the other moment. Prometheus being sponsored by Microsoft. Seriously, that's old. Seriously. If you need to say something Bill, just say it. And to them left outside. Seriously. Give-up now. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.
Just wait to see what happens to your world when the aliens decloak.
The machine really does have a ghost. And a religion. And a God.