reaching the last page

this morning at the laundromat i did something i haven't done in years. i finished a novel.

this is not for a lack of reading, though i don't read as often as i should - allowing my mind to numb itself to tv or internet rather than ... rather than say reading and finishing a novel.

for more years past than i can remember - anytime that i came close to finishing a book and seeing how it would end - my stomach would become a little queasy or my breath, my breathing would become shallow. i would allow myself enough air to breath but not enough to feel comfortable. if i put the book down and distracted myself with something new or different i'd feel at ease once more. and so countless books rest of my bookshelves, never completed.

if i think for a few moments on this habit, it's nothing unexpected from me. i have always had a fear of things ending. i love adieus - the subjunctive and what is the other - super subjunctive. and there have been moments of being at ease with the future - though i have taken a passive lead with that one for some time. but today - with finishing my first book i have completed an event, a moment in my life. and there is a future, another action for me to take with and for myself. i don't know why i find it melancholic. i think there is an element of this action that makes me proud and is hopeful for what may come. but it doesn't sit easy. and perhaps you find it silly that so much thought for the next actions stems from such a microscopic moment in my life.

i'll leave with the last sentences of the book i read - which i did not see coming but i think is a good omen for my future:

"Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?" - lawrence dureell, justine

ghosts on the internet

i turn to the pages of google to see what the weather will be in new port rhode island this weekend.

my letter writing days have sadly succomb to the world of email so the ready knowledge of the zip code is not so ready.

i type in my grandparents address: 24 topa blvd to remind myself of the five digits needed to bring me an "accurate" weather forcast.

i find:

US Patent Agents in RI, US14825, ATTORNEY, Louis Applebaum, 401-846-1241, 24 Toppa Blvd Newport, RI 02840 US. 46641, ATTORNEY, Kevin Correll, 401-295-7377, K P Correll & Associates, ...
patents.oncloud8.com/paa/us_patent_agents_in_us_ri.php - 19k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

my grandfather passed away last year. and his absence in my life remains a ghost. perhaps more so for its ebbing of a generation and a loss of stories and experiences to share with future children.

yet there he is - present in a language that categorizes much of who he was proud to be.

have we begun to talk about life and traces or the internet? would gordon pick up on this as a valuable experience to write toward?

facial expressions

i've come to notice that when i write gchats or aims i make facial gestures as my fingers move across the keyboard forming sentences and phrases.

i wonder what kittler might think about that.

pushing my luck?

last night, flying on a delta plane from las vegas to new york ...

is flying actually correct?

i sat while the plane flew.

last night sitting on a delta plane from las vegas to new york

the middle seat empty allowing my body to pivot five or so extra degrees so that i could comfortably look out the window to witness the topography of the united states.

as day and desert faded into night and city i turned on my itunes, creating a soundtrack to my travels.

for the most part my thoughts and sights were accompanied by josh ritter. i felt it appropriate as he is a song writer who uses the landscape of our country to build his songs and his characters. place as equally important as people.

and then, for some reason, my finger dialed my ipod until the letter x.

there on my display screen was the band xtc.

now, i had just spent the past five days in vegas - mostly at a new technology fair, but it seems even that becomes a gamble for our future - so the luck of the draw, the roll of the dice, the chance for the future was paramount.

an hour or less from the airport, the plane descending and turning to reach its destination, the lights of the populace below me - i debated. and then i went for it.

dear god

now - planes and air travel have been around for quite some time - but being up in the "heavens" i couldn't help wonder if it wasn't pushing my luck:

And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street,
cause they cant make opinions meet,
About god,
I cant believe in you.

but i took my own dare or bet or whatever gamblers do and i listened to the song while riding closer to home. i can't explain the sensation, but feeling both the lyrics and the music behind them, thinking about the state of the world from above - i suppose that i could say - if there is a god speaking to he/she/it from the heavens felt much bolder than speaking to he/she/it from the ground.