I wanted to say, "Tomorrow will be a nicer day than this," but we were both looking for something much more probable. Better to hang your chances on, say, the slow wobble of Earth relative to its orbital plane, and the predictability of the seasons: "Tomorrow will be one day closer to autumn."

 

 

 

 

Kidnapped in Riverdale, negotiations in progress

The living

To what we may look forward

I have been missing, in spirit, so to speak, in so many words, for almost exactly one year, a few days more. That might have turned into two years, maybe three, maybe ten or thirty-two, by which time the internet as we know it will have swallowed our collective consciousness whole, with benign intent, but unable to forecast (the lack of appreciation for non-determinism being the tragic flaw of our generation's technology) that our digital souls would digress, as is the tendency, into sex and combat: the two as inseparable as one and zero, the two known states of the binary bit (that purely human invention that either cannot count its own two selves or cannot understand the concept of nothing -- never both, but never neither, the exclusive or).

If not for the gentle reminder from our exclusive reader (you know who you are, wink), this so-called blog would surely stagnate through those traumatic years. And when judgement comes (sex and combat beget judgement of the highest order) I would be forced to defend these dusty pages without the benefit of having written in any rebuttal ...

That rebuttal might be that I am bored beyond the limits of man. I have spent the better part of two months in my apartment. After a time the walls turned into a meadow and a lark flew overhead, but after that passed I was a prisoner with a left knee for an iron ball, or an iron ball for a left knee, depending on your outlook.

I can walk without limping now. But I have higher aspirations. I would like to fly away to a new place, to see an old friend. There is something about new places, and old friends.

If only I could fly anywhere, everywhere ... not even like a bird, although that would be very cool ... I would settle for a coach seat. The thrill of takeoff, the relief of landing, and the hours of melancholy in between.

Is it true that spiders eat the souls of sleeping airline passengers? Yes, but they were forced to. They used to eat our dreams, you see. But Ambien killed off that preferred staple.

Because I cannot sleep on airplanes, I have avoided this miserable fate.

Here's to flying.

People, sand, water.

I spend all day looking at other people, imagining what I look like to them. Surely this is a character weakness.

Now, to revive the tone of this post, I change the subject to things more fit for summer: sand, and water.

Once upon a time ...

... a wretched twist of evolution condemned humans to far too many waking hours. Sleep is the default and preferred state of all animals, but biological necessities force them to be awake for a certain part of the day.

Technology will soon enable us to sleep all the time. We will then hang out in my dreams. Don't be alarmed if you find yourself transformed into a donkey, or into Marilyn Monroe.

Look out the window. There is a field of clouds, and a northern star.

A Blog by Yours Truly.

Well it's finally here.

What?

This. The web-log. The Have-Not Journal. The Thing That Everyone And Their Mothers Have Been Waiting For.

On this inaugural post I find very little of consequence to write. It's all because I know you are reading.

You, all of you out there, digging around for any scrap of personal information about me, Ji-Soo Park.

The hoardes that Google my name and mistakenly think I am a male prostitute, or a Korean pop star. Those who dare, through digital means, to crack the enigma that is me.

In other words, my mother, and possibly your mother, unless you are one of these mothers yourself.

Anyway, the point is that although I expect the readership to be almost nonexistant, I must work under the assumption that anyone I know in any setting may happen upon this, and for some reason read through it. In real life I depend heavily on social compartmentalization, a practice by which I maintain several different circles of acquaintences while allowing a minimum of intersection among them. This helps me be a different person in different circumstances --

What? Should we not always be true to ourselves? If we cannot write with complete freedom on our own blogs, then what is the meaning of free speech?

Whatever. If you care at all about my point, you get what I am saying. Speech is not free, even if the law protects it. Every word carries a meaning and a small social price.

Hmm. Maybe I will write anything I want anyway.