JUST THISIN' AND THATIN'

1) SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT KITTEHS

I hate it when they figure out just exactly how to get your attention when you are trying to ignore them. Emmylou has it down. The animal has no boundaries.

Living with a kittehn is kind of like living with a bullet. There is always something streaking past that you need to dodge.

Kittehns are more like dinosaurs than one might think at first glance. Emmy gets up on her hind legs, very T-Rex like, and bats at Cooder. Cooder is much more like a stegasaurus, low to the ground with serious claws. Also, Emmylou's new nickname is Shitzilla. I believe you will get the reference there.

Emmylou is a pirate, taking what she wants whenver the mood strikes her. She just attacked a four-pack of toilet paper and ravished it around the dining room. Maybe I need to get her a hunting license this season and take her up to Connecticut to look for deer.

2) HOW TO LIVE

Things are getting tougher. I had a couple of interesting discussions with SMS yesterday. During the morning conversation, he mentioned Stryon's Darkness Visible and Camus' Myth of Sisyphus. SMS postulated to his shrink that really the only philosophical question was whether or not to commit suicide. Although I haven't read that particular Camus, (I am quite a fan of L'etranger.), this is a paraphrase of Camus' question, Does the realization of the absurd require suicide? (Answer, no it requires revolt.). 


Wherever I was when I started this, I am many hours later confused as to where I was going with it. Perhaps it stands on its own as a thought. 


I am not depressed or even dismayed, so don't start getting your worry-about-SallyAnne on. At least, I don't think so. 


On another mailing list to which I subscribe, this was the quote of the day:


So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being. - Franz Kafka 

Time being being the rub. There are still some lime popsicles and roast chicken patties from Trader Joe's so I am good through the weekend.

The other question that SMS posed to me again was "Is it time to leave New York?" Oh goodness! has SMS said this to me several times before (9/11, when I was losing my Greenwich Village apartment, other spans of unemployment). Gosh, I thought as I fell asleep last night, what is "home" and do any of us have it/live there?

My apartment is expensive, although not expensive for this neighborhood or New York City/metro area. And I don't know how I am going to continue to afford it. But I do feel as if this is home. And I don't particularly want to be anywhere else. Well, maybe Paris, and maybe even Canada ... but Paris is unimaginable for work and Canada won't have me.

3) STEVEN JOBS

I was surprised at how sad I was given that I was prone to roll my eyes every time I saw him present a new Apple product. As soon as I heard, I wanted to speak to someone, to share the incredulity of the moment, as I did when 9/11 happened.

Hallelujah asked me why. She does not own a plethoric flotilla of Apple devices. But it is not the ownership or employment of devices, per se, that endear Steve to me at all. He was one of "us" ... he was an LSD-dropping, post-WWII kid. But it was not only his "countercultural" bent. He was a digerati, one of us who was working in computer technology and deployment before it hit the mainstream. He was only one person, one degree of separation, removed from me. I saw him in a meeting room at Pixar a (long) while back. He knew many of my friends who pioneered computer animation.

And I always liked him because he cared about design and usability. His products were intelligent. He did not go for mass market, as did Bill Gates. This always mattered to me, too. Still does. Apple products have proven that good design and a higher price point can succeed. The lowest-common denominator of quality does not have to rule.

I liked this article about his work.


Halloween is just around the corner.