165 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
165 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Tue Jan 8 09:47:22 1991
|
|
To: wordy@Corp
|
|
Subject: Part 7 of CAA #2
|
|
|
|
A BLEARY 3 AM MONOLOGUE
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
#7 in the second online CAA series
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
by
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bainbridge Island, WA
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
October 10, 1986
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Seventy-eight hours and counting fast. It's Friday morning, 3 A.M., and I
|
|
|
|
think I've become asynchronous with respect to the rest of the world -- working
|
|
|
|
all night and sleeping until the phone rings (as it always does, too early).
|
|
|
|
I'm tired, puzzled over a couple of design problems, and in no mood to write.
|
|
|
|
If there's any art at all to this installment, it's the art of spontaneous
|
|
|
|
invention, not that of a concentrated quest for the exquisite transcendence of
|
|
|
|
a well- turned phrase.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, the exhaustion is gripping. But I'm savoring these last few hours of
|
|
|
|
stability -- of knowing where I'm going to sleep every night and having a
|
|
|
|
pretty good idea of who my local friends are. It's not like that on the road,
|
|
|
|
you know; on the road, stability is something you find in your packs. The
|
|
|
|
coffee's always right there in the outer pocket of the kitchen pannier next to
|
|
|
|
the spare candles... the logic probe and digital multimeter live just inside
|
|
|
|
the forward access panel... the micro-TV is tucked in with the HP system... and
|
|
|
|
I commute to work through the wonderfully familiar electronic window that opens
|
|
|
|
wide whenever I type HHH and a string of arcane digits. Kind of bizarre, isn't
|
|
|
|
it? I feel like a Gary Larsen cartoon, living so many contrasts and reversals
|
|
|
|
that even trimming my moustache is sometimes absurd and thought-provoking.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Life is as it should be: there are no boundaries between sweat and
|
|
|
|
wizardry, work and play, computers and bicycle transmissions. I'm living in
|
|
|
|
no-mode land.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Actually, an interesting effect of this wandering life is the profusion of
|
|
|
|
homes that develop, metaphorical electronic ones aside. There's one here on
|
|
|
|
Bainbridge Island, this place isolated enough from the Big City to be both
|
|
|
|
efficient and relaxed. Maybe someday (like I told myself in Austin, Key West,
|
|
|
|
Santa Fe, Crested Butte, Telluride, Santa Barbara and a few other surprise
|
|
|
|
places) I'll come back to live for awhile. Yeah, I'll come back, park the
|
|
|
|
bike, find a house, start a consulting business, and dovetail socially with all
|
|
|
|
these delightful folks I've come to care about over the last month...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But home doesn't work like that when you're a nomad: I'd go crazy in less
|
|
|
|
than a year. For once you taste the energy of beginnings, middles are never
|
|
|
|
quite the same.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I went for a test ride today after finishing the new console mount (the
|
|
|
|
old one, after only 400 miles, was beginning to fracture). Sleek, waterproof,
|
|
|
|
and free of rattles I whisked along, making my first attempt at on-the-road
|
|
|
|
typing (sloppy but rather thrilling... technically speaking). I smiled at
|
|
|
|
joggers, waved at drivers, and stopped to chat with the kids. And it started
|
|
|
|
to happen -- that sweet, slow metamorphosis from deadline-driven madman to
|
|
|
|
wanderer, nomad of the spirit. I rode along, slowly keying ASCII in time with
|
|
|
|
my cadence, sweating in my Patagonia under a clear cold sky, almost managing to
|
|
|
|
be more aware of my surroundings than the subtle interplay of microprocessors
|
|
|
|
spinning in synchronous wait loops and dancing at my touch.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(The software's synthesized voice message on startup has been: "I am the
|
|
|
|
Winnebiko control system, version 7. Are you ever going to ride me, Steve?")
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You bet, my little Bikeasaurus -- in 77 hours. Ticks of the clock are
|
|
|
|
taking on heavy meaning, and the bike stands over there poised, a thing of
|
|
|
|
promise laden with significance, the result of all my time and resources for
|
|
|
|
over a year. "How much did that cost?" the kids always ask. "All I had," I
|
|
|
|
answer, trying to imagine a number, seeing the insights and specialties of
|
|
|
|
friends reflected from end to end. But the task now is to lift my eyes from
|
|
|
|
the machine and see what I've set out to see -- to switch this bizarre
|
|
|
|
contraption from foreground to background, from obsession to tool. Only then
|
|
|
|
will the journey have meaning.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ah, off to bed -- I can't even focus my eyes, much less my mind (had I
|
|
|
|
ever given this much of myself to a job, I'd have my own teak desk by now).
|
|
|
|
The next time you hear from me, it will be from somewhere... out there...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Steve
|
|
|
|
The First 100 Miles
|
|
|
|
|
|
|