[Formatter's note: There are many  sections of text in this  book that
may look like nonsense or garbage if you haven't read the "hard copy."
They're original. ]


microserfs

By Douglas Coupland

thanks:

John Batelle
Elizabeth Dunn
Ian Ferrell
James Glave
James Joaquin
Kevin Kelly
Jane Metcalfe
Judith Regan
Louis Rossetto
Nathan Shedroff
Michael Tchao
Ian Verchere



Contents:

1 Microserfs

2 Oop

3 Interiority

4 FaceTime

5 TrekPolitiks

6 Chyx

7 Transhumanity



1 Microserfs


FRIDAY Early Fall, 1993

This morning, just after 11:00,  Michael locked himself in his  office
and he won't come out.

Bill (Bill!) sent Michael this totally wicked flame-mail from hell  on
the e-mail system - and he just wailed on a chunk of code Michael  had
written.  Using  the  Bloom  County-cartoons-taped-on-the-door  index,
Michael is certainly the most sensitive coder in Building Seven -  not
the  type to  take criticism  easily. Exactly  why Bill  would choose
Michael of all people to wail on is confusing.

We figured it must have been a random quality check to keep the troops
in line. Bill's so smart.

Bill is wise.

Bill is kind.

Bill is benevolent.

Bill, Be My Friend . . . Please!

* * *


Actually, nobody on our floor has ever been flamed by Bill personally.
The episode was  tinged with glamour  and we were  somewhat jealous. I
tried to tell Michael this, but he was crushed.

Shortly before lunch he stood like a lump outside my office. His  skin
was pale  like rising  bread dough,  and his  Toppy's cut was dripping
sweat,  leaving  little   damp  marks  on   the  oyster-gray-with-plum
highlights of  the Microsoft  carpeting. He  handed me  a printout  of
Bill's  memo and  then gallumphed  into his  office, where  he's been
burrowed ever since.

He won't answer his phone, respond to e-mail, or open his door. On his
doorknob he placed  a "Do Not  Disturb" thingy stolen  from the Boston
Radisson during last year's Macworld Expo. Todd and I walked out  onto
the side lawn to  try to peek in  his window, but his  Venetian blinds
were closed and a  gardener with a leaf  blower chased us away  with a
spray of grass clippings.

They mow the lawn every ten minutes at Microsoft. It looks like  green
Lego pads.

* * *


Finally, at about 2:30 a.m., Todd and I got concerned about  Michael's
not eating, so we  drove to the 24-hour  Safeway in Bellevue. We  went
shopping for "flat" foods to slip underneath Michael's door.

The Safeway was completely empty save for us and a few other Microsoft
people just like us - hair-trigger geeks in pursuit of just the  right
snack. Because of all the  rich nerds living around here,  Redmond and
Bellevue are very "on-demand" neighborhoods. Nerds get what they  want
when  they  want  it,  and they  go  psycho  if  it's not  immediately
available.  Nerds  overfocus. I  guess  that's the  problem.  But it's
precisely this ability to narrow-focus that makes them so good at code
writing: one line at a time, one line in a strand of millions.

* * *


When we returned to  Building Seven at 3:00  a.m., there were still  a
few people grinding away. Our group is scheduled to ship product (RTM:
Release to Manufacturing) in just eleven days (Top Secret: We'll never
make it).

Michael's office lights were on,  but once again, when we  knocked, he
wouldn't answer his door. We heard his keyboard chatter, so we figured
he was still alive. The situation really begged a discussion of Turing
logic - could we  have discerned that the  entity behind the door  was
indeed even human? We slid Kraft  singles, Premium Plus crackers, Pop
Tarts, grape leather, and Freezie-Pops in to him.

Todd asked me, "Do you think any of this violates geek dietary laws?"

Just  then, Karla  in the  office across  the hall  screamed and  then
glared out  at us  from her  doorway. Her  eyes were  all red and sore
behind her  round glasses.  She said,  "You guys  are only encouraging
him," like we were feeding a raccoon or something. I don't think Karla
ever sleeps.

She harrumphed and slammed her  door closed. Doors sure are  important
to nerds.

Anyway, by this point Todd and I were both really tired. We drove back
to the house to crash, each  in our separate cars, through the  Campus
grounds - 22  buildings' worth of  nerd-cosseting fun -  cloistered by
100-foot-tall second growth timber, its streets quiet as the womb: the
foundry of our culture's deepest dreams.

There was mist floating on the ground above the soccer fields  outside
the central buildings. I thought about the e-mail and Bill and all  of
that, and  I had  this weird  feeling -  of how  the presence  of Bill
floats about the Campus, semi-visible, at all times, kind of like  the
dead grandfather in the Family Circus cartoons. Bill is a moral force,
a spectral force,  a force that  shapes, a force  that molds. A  force
with thick, thick glasses.

* * *


I am  danielu@microsoft.com. If  my life  was a  game of  Jeopardy! my
seven dream categories would be:

	• Tandy products

	• Trash TV of the late '70s and early '80s

	• The history of Apple

	• Career anxieties

	• Tabloids

	• Plant life of the Pacific Northwest

	• Jell-O 1-2-3

* * *


I am a tester -  a bug checker in Building  Seven. I worked my way  up
the  ladder from  Product Support  Services (PSS)  where I  spent six
months in  phone purgatory  in 1991  helping little  old ladies format
their Christmas mailing lists on Microsoft Works.

Like most Microsoft employees, I consider myself too well adjusted  lo
be working here, even though I am 26 and my universe consists of home,
Microsoft, and Costco.

I  am originally  from Bellingham,  up just  near the  border, but  my
parents live in Palo Alto now. I live in a group house with five other
Microsoft employees: Todd, Susan, Bug Barbecue, Michael, and Abe.

We call ourselves "The Channel Three News Team."

I am single. I think partly this is because Microsoft is not conducive
to relationships. Last  year down at  the Apple Worldwide  Developer's
Conference in San Jose,  I met a girl  who works not too  far away, at
Hewlett-Packard  on  Interstate  90,  but  it  never  went   anywhere.
Sometimes I'll sort of get  something going, but then work  takes over
my life and I bail out of all my commitments and things fizzle.

Lately I've been unable to  sleep. That's why I've begun  writing this
journal late at  night, to try  to see the  patterns in my  life. From
this I hope  to establish what  my problem is  - and then,  hopefully,
solve it.  I'm trying  to feel  more well  adjusted than  I really am,
which is, I guess, the human  condition. My life is lived day  to day,
one line of bug-free code at a time.

* * *


The house:

Growing up, I used to build split-level ranch-type homes out of Legos.
This is  pretty much  the house  I live  in now,  but its  ambiance is
anything but sterilized  Lego-clean. It was  built about twenty  years
ago, maybe before Microsoft was even in the dream stage and this  part
of Redmond had a lost, alpine ski-cabin feel.

Instead of a green plastic pad with little plastic nubblies, our house
sits on a thickly-treed lot beside  a park on a cul-de-sac at  the top
of a steep hill. It's only a seven-minute drive from Campus. There are
two other Microsoft group houses just down the hill. Karla,  actually,
lives in the house three down from us across the street.

People end up living  in group houses either  by e-mail or by  word of
mouth. Living in a group house  is a little bit like admitting  you're
deficient in the having-a-life department, but at work you spend  your
entire life crunching code and testing for bugs, and what else are you
supposed to do? Work,  sleep, work, sleep, work,  sleep. I know a  few
Microsoft employees who  try to fake  having a life  - many a  Redmond
garage  contains a  never-used kayak  collecting dust.  You ask  these
people what  they  do  in  their  spare time  and  they  say,  "Uhhh  
kayaking.  That's right.  I kayak  in my  spare time."  You can  tell
they're faking it.

I don't even do many sports  anymore and my relationship with my  body
has gone all weird. I used to play soccer three times a week and now I
feel like a boss in charge of an underachiever. I feel like my body is
a station  wagon in  which I  drive my  brain around,  like a suburban
mother taking the kids to hockey practice.

* * *


The house  is covered  with dark  cedar paneling.  Out front there's a
tiny patch of lawn covered in miniature yellow crop circles thanks  to
the dietary excesses  of our neighbor's  German shepherd, Mishka.  Bug
Barbecue keeps his weather experiments - funnels and litmus strips and
so forth - nailed to the wall beside the front door. A flat of  purple
petunias  long-expired   from  neglect   -  Susan's   one  attempt  at
prettification -  depresses us  every time  we leave  for work  in the
morning, resting  as it  does in  the thin  strip of  soil between the
driveway and Mishka's crop circles.

Abe, our in-house multimillionaire, used to have tinfoil all over  his
bedroom windows to keep out what few rays of sun penetrated the  trees
until we ragged on him so hard that he went out and bought a sheaf  of
black construction paper at the Pay  'n Save and taped it up  instead.
It looked like a drifter  lived here. Todd's only contribution  to the
house's outer appearance is a collection of car-washing toys sometimes
visible beside the garage door. The  only evidence of my being in  the
house is my 1977 AMC Hornet Sportabout hatchback parked out front when
I'm home. It's bright orange, it's rusty, and damnit, it's ugly.


SATURDAY


Shipping hell continued again today. Grind, grind, grind. We'll  never
make it. Have I said that already? Why do we always underestimate  our
shipping schedules? I just don't  understand. In at 9:30 a.m.;  out at
11:30 p.m. Domino's for dinner. And three diet Cokes.

* * *


I got bored a few times today and  checked the WinQuote on my screen 
that's  the extension  that gives  continuous updates  on Microsoft's
NASDAQ price. It was Saturday, and  there was never any change, but  I
kept forgetting. Habit. Maybe the  Tokyo or Hong Kong exchanges  might
cause a fluctuation?

Most staffers peek at WinQuote a few times a day. I mean, if you  have
10,000 shares (and tons of staff members have way more) and the  stock
goes up a buck, you've just made ten grand! But then, if it goes  down
two dollars, you've just lost twenty grand. It's a real psychic yo-yo.
Last April  Fool's Day,  someone fluctuated  the price  up and down by
fifty dollars and half the staff had coronaries.

Because I started out  low on the food  chain and worked my  way up, I
didn't  get much  stock offered  to me  the way  that programmers  and
systems designers get stock firehosed onto them when they start.  What
stock I do own won't fully vest for another 2.5 years (stock takes 4.5
years to fully vest).

Susan's stock vests later this week, and she's going to have a vesting
party. And then she's going to quit. Larger social forces are at work,
threatening to dissolve our group house.

* * *


The stock closed  up $1.75 on  Friday. Bill has  78,000,000 shares, so
that means he's now $136.5 million richer. I have almost no stock, and
this means I am a loser.

* * *


News update: Michael is now out of his office. It's as if he never had
his geek episode. He slept there throughout the whole day (not unusual
at  Microsoft), using  his Jurassic  Park inflatable  T-Rex toy  as a
pillow.  When he  woke up  in the  early evening,  he thanked  me for
bringing him the Kraft products, and now he says he won't eat anything
that's  not entirely  two-dimensional. "Ich  bin ein  Flatlander," he
piped, as he  cheerfully sifted through  hard copy of  the bug-checked
code he'd been chugging out. Karla made disgusted clicking noises with
her tongue from her office. I think maybe she's in love with Michael.

* * *


More details about our group house - Our House of Wayward Mobility.

Because  the house  receives almost  no sun,  moss and  algae tend  to
colonize what surfaces they can. There is a cherry tree crippled by  a
fungus.  The  rear verandah,  built  of untreated  2x4's,  has quietly
rotted away, and the sliding door in the kitchen has been braced  shut
with  a hockey  stick to  prevent the  unwary from  straying into  the
suburban abyss.

The driveway  contains six  cars: Todd's  cherry-red Supra  (his life,
what little there is of it),  my pumpkin Hornet, and four  personality
free gray  Microsoftmobiles-a Lexus,  an Acura  Legend, and  two Tauri
(nerd plural for Taurus). I bet  if Bill drove a Shriner's go-cart  to
work, everybody else would, too.

Inside,  each of  us has  a bedroom.  Because of  the McDonald's-like
turnover in the  house, the public  rooms - the  living room, kitchen,
dining room, and basement - are bleak, to say the least. The  dormlike
atmosphere precludes heavy-duty interior  design ideas. In the  living
room are two velveteen sofas that  were too big and too ugly  for some
long-gone tenants  to take  with them.  Littered about  the Tiki green
shag carpet are:

	• Two Microsoft Works PC inflatable beach cushions

	• One Mitsubishi 27-inch color TV

	• Various vitamin bottles

	• Several weight-gaining system cartons (mine)

	• 86 copies of MacWEEK arranged in chronological order by  Bug
	Barbecue, who will go berserk if you so much as move one issue
	out of dale

	• Six Microsoft Project 2.0 juggling bean bags

	• Bone-shaped chew toys for when Mishka visits

	• Two PowerBooks

	• Three IKEA  mugs encrusted with  last month's blender  drink
	sensation

	• Two 12.5-pound dumbbells (Susan's)

	• A Windows NT box

	• Three baseball caps (two Mariners, one A's)

	• Abe's Battlestar Galactica trading card album

	• Todd's  pile of  books on  how to  change your  life to win!
	(Getting Past OK, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People . . .)

The kitchen is stocked with ramshackle 1970s avocado green appliances.
You can  almost hear  the ghost  of Emily  Hartley yelling  "Hi, Bob!"
every time you open the fridge  door (a sea of magnets and  4-x-6-inch
photos of last year's house parties).

Our mail is in little piles  by the front door: bills, Star  Trek junk
mail, and the heap-o-catalogues next to the phone.

I think we'd order our lives via 1-800 numbers if we could.

* * *


Mom phoned from Palo Alto. This is  the time of year she calls a  lot.
She calls because she wants to speak about Jed, but none of us in  the
family are able. We kind of erased him.

I used to have  a younger brother named  Jed. He drowned in  a boating
accident in the Strait of Juan de Fuca when I was 14 and he was 12.  A
Labor Day statistic.

To  this day,  anything Labor  Day-ish creeps  me out:  the smell  of
barbecuing salmon,  life preservers,  Interstate traffic  reports from
the local radio Traffic Copter, Monday holidays. But here's a  secret:
My e-mail password is hellojed. So I think about him every day. He was
way better with computers than I was. He was way nerdier than me.

* * *


As it  turned out,  Mom had  good news  today. Dad  has a  big meeting
Monday with his company. Mom  and Dad figure it's a  promotion because
Dad's IBM division has been doing so well (by IBM standards - it's not
hemorrhaging money). She says she'll keep me posted.

* * *


Susan taped laser-printed notes on all of our bedroom doors  reminding
us about the vesting party this Thursday ("Vest Fest '93"), which  was
a subliminal  hint to  us to  clean up  the place.  Most of us work in
Building  Seven;  shipping  hell has  brought  a  severe breakdown  in
cleanup codes.

* * *


Susan is 26 and works in  Mac Applications. If Susan were a  Jeopardy!
contestant, her dream board would be:

	• 680X0 assembly language

	• Cats

	• Early '80s haircut bands

	• "My secret affair with Rob in the Excel Group"

	• License plate slogans of America

	• Plot lines from The Monkees

	•The death of IBM

* * *


Susan's an IBM brat and hates that company with a passion. She credits
it  with ruining  her youth  by transferring  her family  eight times
before she graduated from high school - and the punchline is that  the
company  gave  her  father  the  boot  last  year  during  a  wave  of
restructuring. So nothing too evil can happen to IBM in her eyes.  Her
graphic  designer  friend made  up  T-shirts saying  "IBM:  Weak as  a
Kitten, Dumb as a  Sack of Hammers." We  all wear them. I  gave one to
Dad  last Christmas  but his  reaction didn't  score too  high on  the
chuckle-o-meter. (I  am not  an IBM  brat -  Dad was  teaching at  the
University of Western Washington until the siren of industry lured him
to Palo Alto in 1985. It was very '80s.)

Susan's a real  coding machine. But  her abilities are  totally wasted
reworking old code for something like the Norwegian Macintosh  version
of Word 5.8. Susan's work ethic best sums up the ethic of most of  the
people I've met who work at Microsoft. If I recall her philosophy from
the conversation she had with her younger sister two weekends ago,  it
goes something like this:

"It's never  been, 'We're  doing this  for the  good of society.' It's
always been  us taking  an intellectual  pride in  putting out  a good
product - and making money. If putting a computer on every desktop and
in every home didn't make money, we wouldn't do it."

That sums up most of the Microsoft people I know.

* * *


Microsoft, like  any office,  is a  status theme  park. Here's a quick
rundown:

	• Profitable projects are  galactically higher in status  than
	loser (not quite as profitable) projects.

	• Microsoft at Work (Digital Office) is sexiest at the moment.
	Fortune 500 companies are drooling over DO because it'll allow
	them to downsize millions  of employees. Basically, DO  allows
	you to operate  your fax, phone,  copier - all  of your office
	stuff - from your PC.

	• Cash cows like Word are profitable but not really considered
	cutting edge.

	• Working on-Campus is  higher status than being  relegated to
	one of the off-Campus Siberias.

	• Having Pentium-driven hardware  (built to the hilt)  in your
	office is higher status than having 486 droneware.

	• Having technical knowledge is way up there.

	• Being an architect is also way up there.

	• Having Bill-o-centric contacts is way, way up there.

	• Shipping your product on  time is maybe the coolest  (insert
	wave of anxiety here). If you  ship on time you get a  Ship-It
	award:  a  12-x-15-x-l-inch  Lucite slab  -  but  you have  to
	pretend it's  no big  deal. Michael  has a  Ship-It award  and
	we've  tried  various  times  to  destroy  it  - blowtorching,
	throwing  it  off the  verandah,  dousing it  with  acetone to
	dissolve  it  -  nothing   works.  It's  so  permanent,   it's
	frightening.

* * *


More roommate profiles:

First,  Abe.  If Abe  were  a Jeopardy!  contestant,  his seven  dream
categories would be:

	• Intel assembly language

	• Bulk shopping

	• C++

	• Introversion

	• "I love my aquarium"

	• How to have millions of  dollars and not let it affect  your
	life in any way

	• Unclean laundry

* * *


Abe is sort  of like the  household Monopoly-game banker.  He collects
our monthly checks for the landlord, $235 apiece. The man has millions
and he rents!  He's been at  the group house  since 1984, when  he was
hired fresh out of  MIT. (The rest of  us have been here,  on average,
about eight months  apiece.) After ten  years of writing  code, Abe so
far shows no signs  of getting a life.  He seems happy to  be reaching
the age  of 30  in just  four months  with nothing  to his  name but a
variety of neat-o  consumer electronics and  boxes of Costco  products
purchased  in  rash  moments of  Costco-scale  madness  ("Ten thousand
straws! Just think of it - only $10 and I'll never need to buy  straws
ever again!") These products line the walls of his room, giving it the
feel of an air-raid shelter.

Bonus detail:  There are  dried-out patches  of sneeze  spray all over
Abe's monitors. You'd think he could afford 24 bottles of Windex.

* * *


Next, Todd. Todd's seven Jeopardy! categories would be:

	• Your body is your temple

	• Baseball hats

	• Meals made from combinations of Costco products

	• Psychotically religious parents

	• Frequent and empty sex

	• SEGA Genesis gaming addiction

	• The Supra

* * *


Todd works  as a  tester with  me. He's  really young  - 22  - the way
Microsoft employees all used to be. His interest is entirely in girls,
bug testing, his  Supra, and his  body, which he  buffs religiously at
the Pro Club  gym and feeds  with peanut butter  quesadillas, bananas,
and protein drinks.

Todd is historically empty. He neither knows nor cares about the past.
He reads Car and Driver and  fields three phone calls a week  from his
parents who believe  that computers are  "the Devil's voice  box," and
who try to persuade him to return home to Port Angeles and speak  with
the youth pastor.

Todd's the most fun of all the house members because he is all impulse
and no consideration. He's also the only roomie to have clean  laundry
consistently. In a crunch you can always borrow an unsoiled shirt from
Todd.

* * *


Bug Barbecue's seven Jeopardy! categories would be:

	• Bitterness

	• Xerox PARC nostalgia

	• Macintosh products

	• More bitterness

	• Psychotic loser friends

	• Jazz

	• Still more bitterness

* * *


Bug  Barbecue is  the World's  Most Bitter  Man. He  is (as  his name
implies) a tester with me at Building Seven. His have-a-life factor is
pretty near zero. He has the  smallest, darkest room in the house,  in
which he maintains two small  shrines: one to his Sinclair  ZX-81, his
first  computer, and  the other  to supermodel  Elle MacPherson.  Man,
she'd freak if she saw the hundreds of little photos - the coins,  the
candles, the little notes.

Bug is 31, and he lets everyone know it. If we ever ask him so much as
"Hey, Bug - have you seen volume 7 of my Inside Mac?" he gives a sneer
and  replies, "You're  obviously of  the generation  that never  built
their own motherboard or had to invent their own language."

Hey, Bug - we love you, too.

Bug never gets offered stock by the company. When payday comes and the
little  white  stock  option  envelopes  with  red  printing   reading
"Personal and Confidential" end up in all of our pigeonholes, Bug's is
always, alas, empty. Maybe they're trying to get rid of him, but  it's
almost impossible  to fire  someone at  Microsoft. It  must drive  the
administration nuts. They  hired 3,100 people  in 1992 alone,  and you
know not all of them were gems.

Oddly, Bug is fanatical in his  devotion to Microsoft. It's as if  the
more they ignore him, the more rabidly he defends their honor. And  if
you cherish your own personal time, you will not get into a discussion
with him  over the  famous Look-&-Feel  lawsuit or  any of  the FTC or
Department of Justice actions:

"These litigious  pricks piss  me off.  I wish  they'd compete  in the
marketplace where it really counts instead of being little wusses  and
whining for government assistance to compete. . . ."

You've been warned.

* * *


Finally, Michael. Michael's seven Jeopardy! categories would be:

	• FORTRAN

	• Pascal

	• Ada (defense contracting code)

	• LISP

	• Neil Peart (drummer for Rush)

	• Hugo and Nebula award winners

	• Sir Lancelot

* * *


Michael is probably the closest I'll ever come to knowing someone  who
lives in  a mystical  state. He  lives to  assemble elegant streams of
code instructions. He's  like Mozart to  everyone else's Salieri  - he
enters people's offices  where lines  of code  are written  on the dry
erase whiteboards and quietly optimizes the code as he speaks to them,
as though someone had written wrong instructions on how to get to  the
beach and he was merely setting them right so they wouldn't get lost.

He  often  uses  low-tech solutions  to  high-tech  problems: Popsicle
sticks, rubber bands, and little strips  of paper that turn on a  bent
coat hanger  frame help  him solve  complex matrix  problems. When  he
moved offices into his new window office (good coder, good office), he
had to put Post-it notes reading "Not Art" on his devices so that  the
movers didn't  stick them  under the  glass display  cases out  in the
central atrium area.


SUNDAY


This morning  before heading  to the  office I  read an in-depth story
about  Burt and  Loni's divorce  in People  magazine. Thus,  1,474,819
brain cells that could have been used toward a formula for world peace
were  obliterated. Are  computer memory  and human  memory analogous?
Michael would know.

* * *


Mid-morning, I  mountain-hiked over  to Nintendo  headquarters, across
Interstate 520 from Microsoft.

Now,  I've never  been to  the South  African plant  of, say,  Sandoz
Pharmaceuticals, but I bet it looks a lot like Nintendo headquarters 
two-story  industrial-plex  buildings sheathed  with  Death Star-black
windows and landscape trees  around the parking lot  seemingly clicked
into place  with a  mouse. It's  nearly identical  to Microsoft except
Microsoft uses sea foam-green glass on its windows and has big  soccer
fields should it ever really need to expand.

I Hacky  Sacked for  a while  with my  friend, Marty,  and some of his
tester friends during their  break. Sunday is a  big day for the  kids
who man the PSS phone lines there because all of young America is  out
of school and using the  product. It's really young at  Nintendo. It's
like the year 1311, where everyone  over 35 is dead or maimed  and out
of sight and mind.

All of us  got into this  big discussion about  what sort of  software
dogs would  design if  they could.  Marty suggested  territory-marking
programs with piss simulators  and lick interfaces. Antonella  thought
of BoneFinder. Harold thought of a doghouse remodeling CAD system. All
very cartographic/high sensory: lots of visuals.

Then, of course, the subject of catware came up. Antonella suggested a
personal secretary program that tells the world, "No, I do not wish to
be petted. Oh, and hold all my calls." My suggestion was for a program
that sleeps all the time.

Anyway,  it's   a  good   thing  we're   human.  We   design  business
spreadsheets, paint programs, and  word processing equipment. So  that
tells you where we're at as a species. What is the search for the next
great compelling application but a search for the human identity?

* * *


It was  nice being  at Nintendo  where everybody's  just a  little bit
younger and hipper  than at Microsoft  and actually takes  part in the
Seattle scene. Everyone at Microsoft seems, well, literally 31.2 years
old, and it kind of shows.

There's this eerie,  science-fiction lack of  anyone who doesn't  look
exactly 31.2 on the Campus.  It's oppressive. It seems like  only last
week the entire Campus went through Gap ribbed-T mania together -  and
now they're all  shopping for the  same 3bdrm/2bth dove-gray  condo in
Kirkland.

Microserfs are locked by nature into doing 31.2-ish things: the  first
house, the  first marriage,  the "where-am-I-going"  crisis, the  out
goes-the-Miata/in-comes-the-minivan thing, and, of course, major death
denial. A Microsoft  VP died of  cancer a few  months ago, and  it was
like, you  weren't allowed  lo mention  it. Period.  The three  things
you're not allowed to discuss at work: death, salaries, and your stock
options.

I'm 26 and I'm just not ready to turn 31.2 yet.

* * *


Actually, I've been thinking about this death denial business quite  a
bit lately. September always makes me think of Jed. It's as if there's
this virtual Jed  who might have  been. Sometimes I  see him when  I'm
driving by water; I see him standing on a log boom smiling and waving;
I see him buckaroo-ing a killer whale in the harbor off downtown while
I'm stuck in traffic on the Alaskan Way viaduct. Or I see him  walking
just  ahead of  me around  the Space  Needle restaurant,  always just
around the curve.

I'd like to  hope Jed is  happy in the  afterworld, but because  I was
raised without any  beliefs, I have  no pictures of  an afterworld for
myself. In the past I have  tried to convince myself that there  is no
life after  death, but  I have  found myself  unable to  do this, so I
guess intuitively I feel there is something. But I just don't know how
to begin figuring out what these pictures are.

Over the last few weeks  I've been oh-so-casually asking the  people I
know about their own pictures  of the afterworld. I can't  simply come
right out and ask directly because,  as I say, you just don't  discuss
death at Microsoft.

The results were pretty dismal.  Ten people asked, and not  one single
image. Not one single  angel or one bright  light or even one  single,
miserable barbecue briquette. Zero.

Todd was more concerned about who would show up at his funeral.

Bug Barbecue told me all this depressing stuff, of how the constituent
elements of his personality weren't around before he was born, so  why
should he worry about what happens to them afterward?

Susan  changed  the  topic  entirely.  ("Hey,  isn't  Louis   Gerstner
hopeless?")

* * *


Sometimes, in the employee kitchen,  when I'm surrounded by the  dairy
cases full of Bill-supplied free beverages, I have to wonder if  maybe
Microsoft's corporate zest for recycling aluminum, plastic, and  paper
is perhaps a sublimation of the staff's hidden desire for immortality.
Or  maybe  this  whole   Bill  thing  is  actually   the  subconscious
manufacture of God.

* * *


After Nintendo I mountain-biked around the Campus, delaying my venture
into shipping  hell. I  saw a  cluster of  Deadheads looking for magic
mushrooms out on the west  lawn beside the second-growth forest.  Fall
is just around the corner.

The trees around Campus are  dropping their leaves. It's been  strange
weather  this spring  and summer.  The newspaper  says the  trees are
confused and they're shedding early this year.

* * *


Todd was out on the  main lawn training with the  Microsoft intramural
Frisbee team. I  said hello. Everyone  looked so young  and healthy. I
realized that Todd and his  early-20s cohorts are the first  Microsoft
generation - the first  group of people who  have never known a  world
without an MS-DOS-less environment. Time ticks on.

They're also the  first generation of  Microsoft employees faced  with
reduced stock options and, for that matter, plateauing stock prices. I
guess that makes them mere employees, just like at any other  company.
Bug Barbecue  and I  were wondering  last week  what's going to happen
when  this  new  crop of  workers  reaches  its inevitable  Seven-Year
Programmer's Burnout.  At the  end of  it they  won't have two million
dollars to move  to Hilo and  start up a  bait shop with,  the way the
Microsoft old-timers did. Not everyone can move into management.

Discarded.

Face it: You're always just a breath away from a job in telemarketing.
Everybody I know at the company has an estimated time of departure and
they're all within five years. It must have been so weird - living the
way my Dad did - thinking your  company was going to take care of  you
forever.

* * *


A few minutes later I bumped into Karla walking across the west  lawn.
She walks really quickly and she's so small, like a little kid.

It was so odd  for both of us,  seeing each other outside  the oatmeal
walls and oyster carpeting  of the office. We  stopped and sat on  the
lawn and talked for a while. We shared a feeling of conspiracy by  not
being inside helping with the shipping deadline.

I asked her if  she was looking for  'shrooms with the Deadheads,  but
she said she was going nuts in  her office, and she just had to  be in
the wild for a few minutes in the forest beside the Campus. I  thought
this was such  an unusual aspect  of her personality,  I mean, because
she's so mousy and  indoorsy-looking. It was good  to see her and  for
once to not  have her yelling  at me to  stop being a  nuisance. We've
worked maybe ten offices apart for  half a year, and we've never  once
really talked to each other.

I showed Karla some birch bark I'd peeled off a tree outside  Building
Nine and she showed me some scarlet sumac leaves she had found in  the
forest. I told her about the discussion Marty, Antonella, Harold,  and
I had been having about dogs and cats over at Nintendo's staff  picnic
tables. She lay down  on the ground and  thought about this, so  I lay
down, too. The sun was hot and good. I could only see the sky and hear
her words. She surprised me.

She said that  we, as humans,  bear the burden  of having to  be every
animal in the world rolled into one.

She said that we really have no identity of our own.

She said, "What is human  behavior, except trying to prove  that we're
not animals?"

She said, "I think we have strayed so far away from our animal origins
that we are bent on creating a new, supra-animal identity."

She said, "What are computers but the EveryAnimalMachine?"

I couldn't believe she was talking like this. She was like an  episode
of Star Trek made flesh. It was as if I was falling into a deep,  deep
hole as I heard  her voice speak to  me. But then a  bumblebee bumbled
above us and it stole our attention the way flying things can.

She said, "Imagine  being a bee  and living in  a great big  hive. You
would have no idea  that tomorrow was going  to be any different  than
today. You could return to that  same hive a thousand years later  and
there would be just the same perception of tomorrow as never being any
different.  Humans are  completely different.  We assume  tomorrow is
another world."

I asked her  what she meant,  and she said,  "I mean that  the animals
live in another sense of time. They can never have a sense of  history
because they can never see the difference between today and tomorrow."

I juggled some small rocks I found beside me. She said she didn't know
I could juggle and I told her it was something I learned by osmosis in
my last product group.

We got  up and  walked together  back to  Building Seven.  I pushed my
bike. We walked over the winding white cement path speckled with  crow
shit, past the fountains, and through the hemlocks and firs.

Things seem different  between us now,  as if we've  somehow agreed to
agree. And God, she's skinny! I think I'm going to bring her snacks to
eat tomorrow while she works.

I hope this isn't like feeding a raccoon.

Worked until  just past  midnight and  came back  home. Had  a shower.
Three bowls of Corn Flakes and ESPN. My weekends are no different than
my weekdays. One  of these days  I'm going to  vanish up to  someplace
beautiful like Whidbey Island and just veg for two solid days.

* * *


Todd is compressing code this week and as a sideline invented what  he
calls a "Prince Emulator" - a program th@ converts whatever you  write
into a title of a song by Minnesotan Funkmeister, Prince. I sampled it
using part of today's diary.

* * *


A few minutz  l8r I bumpd  in2 Karla walkng  akros the west  lawn. She
walkz rEly kwikly & she'z so smal, like a litl kid.

It wuz so odd 4  both uv us, C-ng Ech  uthr outside the otmeel walz  +
oystr karpetng uv  the ofiss. We  stopd & s@  on the lawn  + talkd 4 a
wile. We shared a  fElng uv konspiraC by  not B-ng inside helpng  with
the shippng dedline.

I askd hr if  she wuz lookng 4  shroomz with the Dedhedz,  but she sed
she wuz going nutz in hr ofiss, & she just had 2 B in the wild 4 a few
minutz in the 4St B-side the  Kampus. I thot this wuz such  an unuzual
aspekt uv hr prsonaliT, I mEn, B-kuz she'z so mowsy + indorzy  lookng.
It wuz good 2  C hr & 4  once 2 not hav  hr yellng @ me  2 stop B-ng a
noosanss. We'v wrkcl mayB  10 officz apart 4  half a yEr, +  we'v nevr
once rEly talkd 2 Ech uthr.

I showd Karla sum brch bark I'd pEld off a trE outside Bildng 9 &  she
showd me sum skarlet soomak lEvz she  had found in the 4St. I told  hr
about the diskussion  MarT, AntonLa, Harold,  + I had  B-n havng about
dogz & katz ovr  @ Nin-10-do'z staf piknik  tablz. She lA down  on the
ground + thot about this, so I lA  down, 2. The sun wuz hot & good.  I
kould only C the sky + hear hr wrdz. She srprizd me.

She sed th@ we, az humnz, bear the brdn uv havng 2 B evry animl in the
wrld rold in2 1.

She sed th@ we rEly hav no identiT uv our own.

She sed,  "Wh@ iz  human B-havior,  X-ept tryng  2 proov  th@ w'r  not
animalz?"

She sed, "I think we hav strAd so far awA from our animal originz  th@
we R bent on kreATng a noo, soopra-animal idNtiT."

She sed, "Wh@ R komputrz but the EvryAnimalMashEn?"

I kouldn't B-lEv she wuz talkng like this. She wuz like an episode  uv
Star Trek made flesh. It wuz az if I wuz falng in2 a dEp, dEp hole  az
I hrd hr  voiss speak 2  me. But then  a bumbl-B bumbld  abuv us &  it
stole our a10nshun the wA flyng thngz kan.

She sed, "Imagin B-ng a B + livng in a gr8 big hive. You would hav  no
idea th@ 2morow wuz going 2 B any difrent than 2dA. You kould retrn  2
th@ same hive 1,000 yearz latr & ther would B just the same  prception
uv 2morow az  nevr B-ng any  difrent. Humanz R  kompletely difrent. We
asoom 2morow iz anuthr wrld."

I askd hr  wot she ment,  + she sed,  "I meen th@  the animalz liv  in
anuthr sens uv time.  They kan nevr hav  a sens uv history  B-kuz they
kan nevr C the difrenss B-twEn 2dA & 2morow."

I juggld  sum smal  rokz I  found B-side  me. She  sed she didnt kno I
kould juggl + I told hr it  wuz sumthing I Irnd by ozmosis in  my last
produkt groop.

We got up & walkd 2gethr bak 2 Bildng 7. I pushd my bike. We walkd ovr
the windng wite Cment path spekld with krow shit, past the fountun,  +
thru the hemlokz & frz.

* * *


I reread the  Prince Version and  realized th@ after  a certain point,
real language decomposes into encryption code; Japanese.


[Formatter's note:  A  full page  of  random-looking ascii  -  e.g. %
43]505)%1$])3D=$5D526524Y'0T]24D5#5$Q954Y&3U(@$)$#L!PZ l tried one  and they're not very  good, so don't romanticize  them.
They have a  curry taste, and  they're full of  frozen *peas* (of  all
things). More importantly, by eating "burgers," aren't you just  still
buying into the "meat concept." Tofu hot dogs are merely an isotope of
meat.

> lf you yourself are a  vegetarian, but still dream of burgers,  then
all you really are is a cryptocarnivore.

* * *

Went to Nordstrom's. Watched Wings on A&E.

* * *

Bug sulks in his room all day, listening to Chet Baker, restoring  his
antique Radio Shack Science Fair 65-In-One electronic project kit, and
memorizing C++ syntax. Susan house  hunts. Todd lives at the  Pro Club
gym. Abe has been  reassigned to a subgroup  in charge of designing  a
toolbar interface. Whooo-ee!

I  think Abe's  being punished  for going  sailing that  day with  his
friends during the week we were  all in crunch mode. We don't  see him
much -  he's back  in Microsoft  time/space again.  He gets home late,
feeds  his  neon  tetras  sprinkles  of  ground-up,  freeze-dried poor
people, chides  us all  for not  exhibiting more  enterprise, and then
sleeps.

* * *

2:45 A.M. Drove into Seattle tonight with Todd in separate cars.  Todd
scored at The Crocodile and at  the moment he and his "date,"  Tabitha
from Tukwilla, are in his room getting acquainted.

Bug is here  in the living  room watching "Casper  the Friendly Ghost"
cartoons on the  VCR, "looking for  subtext." I can't  believe it, but
I'm getting into it, too. ("Wait, Bug - rewind that back a few seconds
- wasn't  that a  Masonic compass?")  Karla was  asleep ages  ago. She
stayed home and watched The Thornbirds on the VCR with Susan. ("It's a
girl thing. Scram.") Karla has an unsuspected fathomless capacity  for
sleep of which I am most envious.

* * *

Continued adding to my computer's subconscious files.

Welcome to Macintosh

Carl's Jr.

Gore-Tex®

gray metallic Saabs

Barry Diller

KISS

mini-bars

ads for pearls

outer space

frequent flyer points

Oscar de la Renta

minimum wage

manufacture

dungeons

magazine scent strips

Bell Atlantic

phone jacks

F-16

Calvin Klein

bourgeois decay images

Upload

Sparkletts

flame broiled

switchbox

the DMV

MiG-29

Han Solo

Download

Drive

Tori Spelling

Advil

Kotex

Rosslyn

You jerk

Langley

Lee Press-ons


THURSDAY


I went to the  library and looked  up books on  freeway construction 
the asphalt and cement kind - Dewey Decimal number 625.79 - and  there
haven't  been  any published  on  the subject  for  two decades!  It's
bizarre -  like a  murder mystery.  It's as  if the  notion of freeway
construction simply vanished in 1975. Sizzler titles include:

Bituminous Materials in Road Construction

Surface Texture Versus Skidding

Engineering Study: Alaska Highway

Better Concrete Pavement Serviceability

Vehicle Redirection Effectiveness of Median Berms and Circles

Actually, there weren't all too many books on freeways ever  published
in the first  place. You'd think  we'd have whole  stadiums devoted to
the worship of freeways for the amount of importance they play in  our
culture, but  no. Zip.  I guess  we're overcompensating  for this past
shortcoming by  our current  overhyping of  the InfoBahn  - the I-way.
It's emerged  from nowhere  into this  big important  thing we Have to
Know About.

I  have  borrowed, among  others,  the seminal  work  on the  subject:
Handbook of Highway  Engineering (1975), by  Robert F. Baker,  editor;
Van Nostrand and  Reinhold Company. It'll  help melt away  my lax days
before I join a new product group.

* * *

We ripped away some wallpaper in  the kitchen by the fridge and  found
that underneath the various stratum  of paper (daisies; Peel n'  Stick
pepper-mills),  in  condition  just  as fresh  as  the  day  they were
written, the words:

one mellow day

June 6, 1974

I'm long gone but my idea of peace now remains with you

d.b.

Hippie stuff, but I lost my breath  when I read the words. And I  felt
like for a  moment that maybe  an idea is  more important than  simply
being alive, because an idea lives a long time after you're gone.  And
then the feeling passed.  And we found all  of these old, early  1970s
Seattle newspapers  behind a  wallboard. The  prices back  then .  . .
cheap!

* * *

At the  Bellevue Starbucks,  Karla and  I discussed  the unprecedented
success of Campbell's  Cream of Broccoli  Soup. On a  napkin we listed
ideas for new Campbell's soup flavors:

Creamy Dolphin

Lagoon

Beak

Pond

Crack

* * *

Note: I think Starbucks has patented a new configuration of the  water
molecule, like in a Kurt  Vonnegut novel, or something. This  molecule
allows  their  coffee  to  remain  liquid  at  temperatures  over 212á
Fahrenheit. How do  they get their  coffee so hot!  It takes hours  to
cool off - it's so hot it's  undrinkable - and by the time it's  cool,
you're sick of  waiting for it  to cool and  that "coffee moment"  has
passed. At least Starbucks  doesn't stink like sweet  coffee-flavoring
chemicals . .  . like the  way you'd expect  a Barbie doll's  house to
smell.

* * *

Saw a documentary about the  commodities market. Read some books  that
were lying around. Watched some old 1970s TV shows later. I remembered
an  old  Nova  episode  in which  German  hackers  published  a secret
document, and  some Ph.D.  hippie geek  from UC  Berkeley tracked them
down  with  a  baited  document. Was  this  hippie  geek  tricked into
trapping  one  of  his  own  kind  by  the  NSA  or  some  other  such
organization? Ethics.

Then I started to think about those old Time-Life books with such all
embracing names like, "The Elements," and "The Ocean," and of how  the
information  in  them  never  really goes  out  of  date,  whereas the
computer series books date within minutes: "Most 'personal  computers'
now  contain  devices  called 'hard  drives'  capable  of storing  the
equivalent, in some cases, of up to three college textbooks."

Felt a bit random.

* * *

Capture

specific

functions

Microsoft

Navajo

NASA

Flesh-eating bacteria

Arthur Miller

Kristy McNichol

Lance Kerwin

skateboard

trail mix

PERL

Job description

toner cartridge

very

really

a lot

ummm . . .

Martin-Marietta


FRIDAY


Susan and  Karla came  into the  living room  when I  was reading  the
Handbook  of  Highway Engineering,  and  they both  flipped  out. They
totally grokked on it. We kept  on oohing and ahhhing over the  book's
beautiful, car-free  on-ramps, off-ramps,  and overpasses  - "So clean
and pure and undriven."

Karla noted that  freeway engineers had  their own techie  code words,
just  as dull  and impenetrable  as geek  talk. "Examples:  subgrades,
partial clover-leaf interchanges,  cutslopes, and TBMs  (Tunnel Boring
Machines) . . ."

"They even abused three-letter acronyms," said Karla, who also decreed
that Rhoda Morgenstern would have dated a freeway engineer back in the
1970s. "His name  would have been  Rex and he  would have looked  like
Jackson Browne and would have known the compressive strength range  of
Shale, Dolomite, and Quartzite to the nearest p.s.i. x 10^3."

* * *

I am really terrible at remembering three-letter acronyms. It's a real
dead  zone in  my brain.  I still  barely can  tell you  what RAM  is.
Wherever this part of the brain is located, it's the same place  where
I misfile the names and faces of people I meet at parties. I'm so  bad
at names. I'm realizing that three-letter acronyms are actually  words
now, and no longer simply acronyms:  ram, rom, scuzzy, gooey, see-pee
you. . . . Words have to start somewhere.

* * *

Karla  told me  about when  she was  young. About  how she  remembered
trying to make  - no, not  make, engineer -  Campbell's Vegetable Soup
from  scratch  - chopping  up  the carrots  and  potatoes to  resemble
machine-cut cubes  - getting  the exact  number of  lima beans per can
(4).

"I grew  up with  assembly lines,  remember. My  favorite cartoon  was
always the one  with the little  chipmunks stuck inside  the vegetable
canning factory. I used to guess at the spices, too. But in the end it
never worked because I didn't use beef stock or MSG."

* * *

Random day. Fed on magazines for a while. Radio. Phone call from  Mom,
and she talked about traffic.

* * *

Industrial Light & Magic

jump

hit

We're just friends

run

multi-user dungeon

Ziggy Stardust

Sky Tel paging

FORTRAN

IKEA

Wells Fargo

Safeway

hummingbird

I am an empath

4x4

Kung Fu

Death Star

platform

oligarchy

Highway 92

Deuteronomy

Staples

Pearle Express

Kraft singles

cordless

brain ded

Silo

an executive lifestyle

Maybelline

implicator

Insert

Font

Format

Tools


SATURDAY


Oh God.

I knew I'd do something. Karla's  on the warpath because I forgot  our
one-month  anniversary.  Doh! She  gave  me until  bedtime  tonight to
remember, but I still forgot, so now she's not speaking to me. I tried
to tell her that time isn't  necessarily linear, that it flows in  odd
clumps and  bundles and  clots. "Well,  err, um  - what  exactly is  a
month, Karla? Ha ha ha."

"I don't know about you,  Dan," she interrupted, "but I  programmed my
desktop calendar to remind me.  Good night." [Insert one frosty  glare
here. A  bored yawn;  a bedroom  door nudged  closed with  little baby
toes.]

It's  nice to  see this  romantic side  to Karla's  personality -  an
unexpected bonus - but still, nobody likes THE COUCH. And so now after
weeks of blissful insomnia-free  sleep, I'm yet again  PowerBooking my
daily diaries here on the acid green couch in a big big way.

Comely superstar Cher hawks cosmetics on late-nite TV. Mishka is  also
spending tonight  in the  living room  and she  is making  foul smells
indeed. At least it's  raining out - buckets  - and the weird  too-hot
summer is over.

Tomorrow I will program my desktop computer to remind me of every  one
of our anniversaries, monthly or otherwise, until the year 2050.

* * *

Actually, we all have so much  free time now. Karla, Todd, Bug,  and I
sit  around  awaiting  our  next  product  group  assignment,  feeling
deflated  and  just  plain  exhausted.  We  forget  about  clock-  and
calendar-type time completely.

Today, while raking the front  lawn, Todd said, "Wouldn't it  be scary
if our internal clocks weren't set to the rhythms of waves and sunrise
-  or  even the  industrial  whistle toot  -  but to  product  cycles,
instead?"

We got  nostalgic about  the old  days, back  when September meant the
unveiling of new car models and TV shows. Now, carmakers and TV people
put them out whenever. Not the same.

* * *

Yes, Karla moved in a month ago. We're an item.

Todd, Abe, and I  lugged her "ownables" from  her geek house down  the
street up to our  own geek house at  the top of the  cul-de-sac: futon
and frame  . .  . cluster  o' computers  . .  . U-Frame-It Ansel Adams
print. . . and dumped it all into Michael's empty room. And then, once
she  installed  herself in  our  house ("Think  of  me as  a  software
application ")  she announced  that she  was an  expert in (thank you,
Lord . . .) shiatsu massage!

* * *

Mom phoned this afternoon. Out of the proverbial blue she said to  me,
"The  house! The  soil up  in the  hills is  settling and  the roof's
rotting. The door  and windows need  replacing. I just  stand here and
feel  the money  being sucked  out of  my body.  At least  we had  the
foresight to buy it  when we did. But  all my librarian's salary  goes
into the house. The rest goes to Price-Costco."

Money.

I changed the subject. "What did you have for dinner?"

"Those pre-formed pork by-product patties. And ramen noodles. Like the
food you kids eat when you do your coding all-nighters."

It was a "Listening-Only" call.

"I know, Mom. How's Dad doing?"

"Prozac. Well . . . something like Prozac. At least he doesn't  obsess
on the garage anymore. He  goes out in the morning  I-don't-know-where
looking for work. Let's not get into it. God, I wish I drank."

Life is stressful in Palo Alto. I send Dad $500 every month. It's  all
I can spare on the 26K I make here ([$26,000 / 12] - taxes = $1,500).

It was a really bad phone call, but Mom just needed to vent - she  has
so few  ears in  her life  who will  listen. Who  really ever  does, I
guess?

* * *

Michael never did return from Cupertino.

Rumor had  it Bill  had Michael  secretly working  on a project called
Pink, but nothing ever came of the rumor.

A  delivery  firm  specializing in  high-tech  moves  carted Michael's
things to Silicon Valley.  His pyramid of empty  diet Coke cans -  his
suitcase-worth of  Habitrail gerbil  mazes -  his collection  of C. S.
Lewis novels. Gone.

* * *

Fun fact: We found about 40 empty cough syrup bottles in the  cupboard
- Michael  is a  Robitussin addict!  (Actually, he  bulk-buys knockoff
house brands-he's a "PayLess  Tussin" addict.) The world  never ceases
to amaze.

* * *

It’s  late  at night.  Basketball  on TV;  computer  and fitness  mags
everywhere.  Let me  talk about  love. Do  you remember  that old  TV
series, Get Smart! You remember  at the beginning where Maxwell  Smart
is walking down the secret corridor  and there are all of those  doors
that open sideways,  and upside down  and gateways and  stuff? I think
that everybody  keeps a  whole bunch  of doors  just like this between
themselves and the world. But when  you're in love, all of your  doors
are open, and all of their  doors are open. And you roller-skate  down
your halls together.

Let me try again. I'm not good at this.

Karla and I fell in love somewhere out there - I think that's the  way
it  happens -  out there.  The two  of you  start talking  about your
feelings and your feelings float outside of you like vapors, and  they
mix together like a  fog. Before you realize  it, the two of  you have
become the same  mist and you  realize you can  never return to  being
just a lone cloud again, because the isolation would be intolerable.

Karla and I would talk about  computing and coding. Our minds met  out
in the crystal lattice galaxy of ideas and codes and when we came  out
of our reverie, we realized we were in a special place - out there.

And when you meet someone and fall in love, and they fall in love with
you, you ask them, "Will you take my heart - stains and all?" and they
say, "I will,"  and they ask  you the same  question, and you  say, "I
will," too.

* * *

There are other reasons Karla's  lovable, too, reasons not so  poetic,
but just as real. She's like a friend to me, and we have all of  these
common interests - "mind meld" - whatever. I can discuss computers and
Microsoft and  that part  of our  lives -  but we  also have  esoteric
conversations  that have  nothing to  do with  tech life.  I've never
really had a friend this close before.

And there's the  nonlinear stuff: Karla's  intuitive and I'm  not, yet
she's still on my frequency. She understands why yaki soba noodles  in
a plastic UFO-shaped container from Japan are intrinsically  glorious.
She scrunches up her forehead  when she knows she's not  explaining an
idea as clearly as she knows she can, and she gets frustrated.

Anyway, I want to remember that love can happen. Because there is life
after not having a life. I  never expected love to happen. What  was I
expecting from life, then?

As I type this in, I feel small  arms around my neck and a kiss on  my
jugular and I  don't know, but  I think I  may be forgiven.  I hope so
because my forgetting the anniversary thing was an honest mistake. I'm
new at this love thing.

* * *

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Cedars Sinai

starburst explosion

Gak

UNDO

Ctrl Z

CtrI Z

CtrI Z

Phoenix

Cleveland

Luis Vuitton

Kalashnikov

Waxahachie

LA Lakers

San Antonio

bubble economy

Creamsicles

Livermore

the place for ribs

Taylor Sequences

frog

Bleeding eyeliner

Colossal


SUNDAY


Todd's obsessing on  his body big-time  these days. This  afternoon he
came in  late from  the gym  and sat  on the  living room Orion carpet
flexing his arm and staring at  his muscles as they bulged -  buff and
bored. His biggest project at the moment is making pyramids out of his
empty tubs of protein supplements with their gold labels that resemble
van art from the 1970s. Why do nerds make pyramids out of  everything?
Imagine Egypt!

The  Cablevision was  out for  some reason,  and Todd  was just  lying
there, flexing his arms on the floor in front of the snowy screen.  He
said to me, "There has to be more to existence than this.  'Dominating
as  many broad  areas of  automated consumerism  as possible'  - that
doesn't seem to cut it anymore." Todd?

This speech was  utterly unlike him  - thinking about  life beyond his
triceps or his  Supra. Maybe, like  his parents, he  has a deep-seated
need to believe in something, anything. For  now it's his bod . . .  I
think.

He said, "What we do at Microsoft is just as repetitive and dreary  as
any other job, and the pay's the  same as any other job if you're  not
in the stock loop, so what's the deal . . . why do we get so into  it?
What's the engine that pulls us through the repetition? Don't you ever
feel like a  cog, Dan? .  . . wait  - the term  'cog' is outdated  - a
cross-platform highly transportable binary object!"

I said, "Well, Todd, work isn't, and was never meant to be a  person's
whole life."

"Yeah, I know that, but aside from the geek-badge-of-honor stuff about
doing cool products  first and shipping  them on time  and money, what
else is there?"

I thought about this. "So what is it you're really asking me?"

"Where does morality enter our lives,  Dan? How do we justify what  we
do to the rest of humanity? Microsoft is no Bosnia."

Religious upbringing.

Karla came into the room at this point. She turned off the TV set  and
looked at Todd square in the eyes and said, "Todd: you exist not  only
as a member of a family or a company or a country, but as a member  of
a species  - you  are human.  You are  part of  humanity. Our  species
currently has major problems and we're trying to dream our way out  of
these problems and we're using computers to do it. The construction of
hardware  and software  is where  the species  is investing  its very
survival, and this construction requires zones of peace, children born
of peace, and the absence of code-interfering distractions. We may not
achieve transcendence through computation, but we will keep  ourselves
out of the gutter  with them. What you  perceive of as a  vacuum is an
earthly  paradise -  the freedom  to, quite  literally, line-by-line,
prevent humanity from going nonlinear."

She sat down on  the couch, and there  was rain drumming on  the roof,
and I realized that there weren't enough lights on in the room and  we
were all quiet.

Karla said, "We all had good lives. None of us were ever victimized as
far as I  know. We have  never wanted for  anything, nor have  we ever
lusted for anything. Our parents are all together, except for Susan's.
We've been  dealt good  hands, but  the real  morality here,  Todd, is
whether  these  good  hands are  squandered  on  uncreative lives,  or
whether these hands are applied to continuing humanity's dream."

The rain continued.

"It's no coincidence that as a species we invented the middle classes.
Without the middle classes, we  couldn't have had the special  type of
mindset that  consistently spits  out computational  systems, and  our
species could  never have  made it  to the  next level,  whatever that
level's going  to be.  Chances are,  the middle  classes aren't even a
part of the next level. But that's neither here nor there. Whether you
like it or not, Todd, you, me, Dan, Abe, Bug, and Susan - we're all of
us  the  fabricators of  the  human dream's  next  REM cycle.  We  are
building the center from which  all else will be held.  Don't question
it, Todd, and don't  dwell on it, but  never ever let yourself  forget
it."

Karla looked at me. "Dan, let's go out and get a Grand Slam Breakfast.
I have $1.99 and it's burning a hole in my pocket."

* * *

Susan taped the following clipping from the Wall Street Journal to her
door (which won't be hers much  longer - she's moving soon): Sept.  3,
1993, a littie  while ago. The  clipping was about  the Japanese rainy
season that started this year in June, and never ended:

A typhoon  flooded the  moats of  Japan's imperial  palace in downtown
Tokyo. Imperial carp fled their home for the first time and flopped in
knee-deep waters covering one of Japan's busiest intersections.

Susan's "totally right-lobe" now.

I tried to find her and ask  her what she meant with the article,  but
she was out on Capitol Hill getting pixelated with her no-doubt right
lobed grunge buddies.

Susan  quit the  day after  she vested  and began  "running with  the
wolves" - or so she announced to all of us the morning after her  Vest
Fest. She unveiled her  new image as we  were sitting in front  of our
Mitsubishi  home entertainment  totem, eating  our last  few boxes  of
Kellogg's Snak-Paks with plastic spoons, deconstructing old Samson and
Goliath cartoons, and trying to figure  out how/if to wake up my  Dad,
who was still passed out on Michael's bed.

Susan's previous image -  Patagonia-wearing Northwest good girl  - had
been shed away  for a radicalized  look: bent shades,  striped Fortrel
too-tight  top, Angela  Bowie hairdo,  dirty suede  vest, flares,  and
Adidases.

"Wow," said Bug. "What a stud."

She stormed past us,  stopped at the top  of the stairs, said,  ''Fuck
it. I'm tired of being Mary Richards. I'm off to hold up a  7-Eleven,"
and then clomped down to the driveway.

I  think she  expected us  to be  a bit  shocked, but  you know,  it's
actually really great  when a person  reinvents themself. We  finished
our Froot Loops and soy milk.

* * *

Todd came  up to  me later  tonight and  said, "Dan,  I wouldn't  fuck
around so much if I could  meet somebody like Karla." This freaked  me
out and I got this awful feeling that I think is jealousy, but I can't
be sure, because it was a new feeling, and nobody ever tells you  what
feelings are supposed to be like. But Todd saw this and said,  "That's
not what I meant, Dan. I'm not gonna jump her. Gimme some credit.  But
man, where do you find someone like her?"

"Yeah,  she's something  else," I  said blandly,  masking my  interior
burn.

"She's  so  smart,  but  not  just  coding-smart.  She  thinks  like a
preacher, but not a by-the-books preacher. She believes in something."

* * *

Watched  an old  documentary about  NASA. Then  afterward I  saw this
documentary about how codfish have been gill-netted into extinction in
Newfoundland in Canada, so I went  out to Burger King to get  a Whaler
fish-wich-type breaded deep-fried filet sandwich while there was still
time.

* * *

I think I'm going to keep my diary more regularly now. Karla got me to
thinking that  we really  do inhabit  an odd  little nook  of time and
space here, and that odd or  strange as this little nook may  be, it's
where I live - it's where I am.

I  used  to  always  think  I  had  to  have  a  reason  to  record my
observations of the day, or even  my emotions, but now I think  simply
being alive is more than enough reason. Unshackled!

* * *

UV rays

. . . arms armor ammo health

Brillo

Chicken Marsala

WW3

backlit Plexiglas

N x S x T

Tetris

Tonopah, Nevada

locate the source of urges

cat food

System Seven

Woodside

Los Altos Hills

San Jose

Space Cruiser

8

17

32

487

Superstar

Fear Uncertainty Doubt

Crashed in a cornfield

COBOL

Steak house

Calorie factory

Format?

Reject?


MONDAY


Melrose Place night tonight. We double-clicked onto the "BRAIN  CANDY"
mode. We're all addicts.

We like to pretend our geek house is actually Melrose Place.

Tonight  Abe said,  "I wonder  what would  happen if  we all  started
randomly going nonlinear like the show's characters. What would happen
if our personalities became divorced from cause and effect?"

"We could take turns going psycho," said Bug.

Susan, writing the words D-U-R-A-N/D-U-R-A-N on the proximal phalanges
of  her fingers,  said, "You  already are  psycho, Bug.  That doesn't
count."

* * *

Susan read aloud bits from the Handbook of Highway Engineering:

"  'Improperly  installed or  unwarranted  signals can  result  in the
following conditions:

-Excessive delay

-Disobedience of the signal indications

-Use of less adequate routes to avoid the signal

-Increase of accident frequency . . .' "

She paused and looked at the fire  for a while. "I wonder if this  guy
is alive and if he's married?"

* * *

I called to see if Mom  was feeling better, and she was.  She's signed
up for swimming classes at the  local pool. But the big news  occurred
when Dad got on the extension line and shouted at me, "I'm employed!"

"Way to  go, Dad.  I told  you something  would come  up. What are you
going to be doing?"

"Oh -  this and  that. Michael  is certainly  one bright young fellow.
Odd. But bright."

"You're working for Michael?''

"I certainly am."

"At Microsoft?"

"No, he's starting something else, a new company."

"He IS? What are you working on there?" (*Shock*)

"And he's living in one of the spare bedrooms - can you believe it?"

(Good God!) "Yes, I can. And your job description?"

"Here, your mother wants to speak to you . . ."

Mom chatted  about being  relieved with  Dad's salary  plus rent money
flowing in. But the job description never arrived. Nor any clue  about
this mysterious new company.

* * *

We have  a new  word for  vaporware: Sea  Monkeys, as  in, "ScriptX is
really Sea Monkeys!"

Susan said,  "Remember when  you were  a kid  and sent  away for  that
little nuclear  family with  Ddd wearing  a crown  and everything, and
instead all you got was . . . brine shrimp ?"

* * *

Reading a book about viruses.  Went into Boeing Surplus again.  It was
Monday, so all the new magazines were in.

* * *

Karla and I were here in my room, lying on my bed - bare legs akimbo 
and we made  this really embarrassing  observation that neither  of us
have tan lines - that we spent  all summer in the crunch mode to  meet
shipping deadline.

Karla began talking all Star Trekky again - the best thing about her.

She said,  "I don't  believe human  beings store  memory in our brains
exclusively   -  there   simply  aren't   enough  storage   slots  or
interconnective possibilities. And so if not in the brain, then where?
I concluded that another viewpoint on memory was to see our bodies  as
'peripheral memory storage devices.'"

Hence, *bliss*, shiatsu.

"You know yourself, Dan, that every sitcom ever broadcast is stored in
your brain - that's  terabits of terabits of  memory - as well  as the
details of  Burt and  Loni's divorce.  Brains just  don't have  enough
space to  handle all  these bits.  And so  I decided  to learn shiatsu
massage - as a means of thawing memory frozen inside the body."

I thought about this.  The concept of body  as hard drive seemed  very
plausible to me.

I couldn't believe we had been enemies for so long. Trek on, woman!

* * *

So Dad's working - for Michael.  Michael is hiring people. That is  so
random. The world is indeed chaotic.

* * *

Space Needle 1962

Mattel

CÑûï

silver lens sunglasses

Redmond

Schaumberg, III.

Interstate 80/287, NJ

Dallas Galleria/LBJ Fwy.

Torrey Pines/UTC Sorrento Valley, Ca.

Metroplex/lrvine, Ca.

King of Prussia/Route 202

Tandy Corp., Fort Worth, Texas 76107

relentless . . .

crispy . . .

fluids . . .

200 years from now

Ebola Reston

Marburg

Hepatitis non-A/non-B

Ebola Zaire

Sabia

Michelangelo

Machupo

Rift Valley

Hanta


TUESDAY


A FedEx pack arrived today with letters for everybody:  Roommates®Geek
House  followed  by our  postal  address. Talk  about  news. Michael's
offering all of us jobs at  a start-up company he's assembled down  in
Silicon Valley.

Excerpts from Michael's letter:

. . . People our age  are abandoning the tech megacultures in  droves,
starting  up  their  own companies,  or  joining  small, content-based
start-ups.  There's a  recruiting frenzy  going on  . .  . multimedia
craziness . . .  and the big companies  that aren't minting money  are
hemorrhaging brains. It's intellectual Darwinism.

. . .  The five of  you are rudderless  at the moment.  Is now not the
time to take a risk and jump into the future?

. .  . Some  say that  the world  is visibly  cleaving into  a race of
information Haves, and a race of information Have-Nots. Whatever.  Let
me simply say that history is happening, it's happening now and it  is
happening here, in Silicon Valley and in San Francisco.

. . .  Tell me, are  you seriously going  to be at  Microsoft 20 years
from now? 15? 10? 5? Or even 2 years? At what point do you decide that
you have to take your own life into your own hands?

. . . At the very least,  you'll make an okay salary if you  work with
me; at best,  you'll gain equity  in something that  might become very
valuable; I  have an  idea for  a product  that I  think will  be very
popular. And  wouldn't it  be amusing  for all  of us  to be  together
again!

. . . I must have your decisions immediately. Do call.

Most definitely yours,

Michael

* * *

Michael has designed this amazing code and the scary part is completed
already -  the proprietary  work that  could only  have sprouted  from
Michael's brain - Object Oriented Programming from another galaxy. And
he's been  doing it  in his  spare time  - as  a game  called Oop!. He
offered me a job  coding, as opposed to  just testing . .  . who knows
how long it'll take me to move up to coding at Microsoft?

He sent us a  rough draft of a  product description he's written  plus
ERS - Engineering Requirements Specifications. Herewith:

Oop!

Oop! is a virtual construction box - a bottomless box of 3D  Lego-type
bricks that  runs on  IBM or  Mac platforms  with CD-ROM  drives. If a
typical Lego-type brick has eight "bumps"; an Oop! brick can have from
eight to 8,000 bumps, depending on the precision demanded by the user.

Oop! users can virtually  fly in and out  of their creations, or  they
can print  them out  on a  laser printer.  Oop! users  can build their
ideas  on  a "pad"  or  they can  build  their ideas  in  3D space,  a
revolving space station; running ostriches . . . whatever. Oop! allows
users  to clone  structures, and  add these  clones onto  each other,
permitting easy megaconstructions  that use little  memory. Customized
Oop! blocks can  be created and  saved. The ratios  and proportions of
Oop! bricks can also  be customized by the  user in much the  same way
typefaces are scaled.

Imagine: "Oopenstein"  - flesh-like  Oop! bricks  or cells,  each with
ascribed biological functions that allow users to create complex  life
forms using combinations of single and cloned cell structures.  Create
life!

"Mount  Oopmore" -  a function  that allows  users to  take a  scanned
photo, texture  map that  photo, and  convert it  into a 3D visualized
Oop! object.

"Oop-Mahal" - famous buildings, preconstructed in Oop!, that the  user
can then modify as desired.

"Frank Lloyd Oop" - architectural Oop! for adults.

As Oop!  users won't  have the  actual plastic  blocks in their hands,
Oop! generates new experiences to compensate for this lost  tactility:
feedback loops . . . hidden  messages . . . or "rewards"  for properly
completing a kit; i.e., King Kong  will climb up and down your  Empire
State Building and install the flag if you finish. Oop! comes equipped
with "starter modules"  such as houses,  cat shapes, cars,  buildings,
and so forth  that can be  added on to  or modified or  finished in an
unlimited number of colors or surfaces: slate, leopardskin, woodgrain,
and  so forth.  Oop! structures  can grow  hair or  plant life.  Oop!
structures can be distorted,  stretched, morphed, or "Jell-O'd."  Oop!
users  can  dissolve the  connection  lines between  bricks  to create
"solid" structures.

Oop! constructions can be saved  in memory or they can  be "destroyed"
by:

"Los Angeles" (earthquake simulator)

"Pyro" (fire and melting)

"Ruins" (decay simulator: x-numbers  of years of decomposition  can be
selected and simulated. Imagine your ranch house rotted into fragments
and covered  in kudzu  or a  variety of  choking vines.  Another idea:
"Flood")

"Big Foot" (elder sibling emulator: kicks constructions into bits)

"Terror!" (a bomb explodes either inside or outside the structure)

As the Lego Generation ages (and as the Oop! product invariably  grows
more sophisticated), Oop! becomes a powerful real-world modeling  tool
usable by scientists, animators,  contractors, and architects.  Object
Oriented Programming design allows great flexibility for licensees  to
develop cross-platform software add-ons.

Build every possible universe with . . .

Oop!

We felt surreal from Michael's offer.

At sundown, we  congregated in the  living room, turned  off the ESPN,
cracked open two  Safeway fire logs,  and chewed over  Michael's data,
while Mishka  chewed up  a Windows  NT box.  We felt  like a  Magritte
painting.

We talked some more, but the basic idea was clear. As Abe said,  "It's
virtual Lego  - a  3-D modeling  system with  almost unlimited  future
potential."

"Oop! sounds too fun to resist -  like that pile of FREE BIRD SEED  in
the old Road Runner cartoons," said Bug.

Susan said, "Maybe  Oop! is Sea  Monkeys. Maybe it  seems unbelievably
fun, but in the end winds up as a cruel, bitter letdown upon arrival."

"I doubt it," said Abe. "Michael's a genius. We all know that. And the
ERS looked great."

"Just think," said Karla, "Lego can be rendered into anything, in 2 or
3  dimensions.  This  product has  the  possibility  for becoming  the
universal standard for 3-dimensional modeling."

We silently nodded.

And we didn't talk much. We just looked into the flames and thought.

* * *

Mom called. She's learning the butterfly stroke - at 60!

* * *

Karla kept on talking about  bodies, her obsession, tonight, about  an
hour ago before she fell asleep and I, as ever, remained wide-eyed and
awake.

"When I was younger," she said, "I went through a phase where I wanted
to be a machine. I think this  is one of the normal phases that  young
people go through now - like The Lord of the Rings phase, the Ayn Rand
phase - I honestly didn't want to be flesh; I wanted to be  'precision
technology' - like a Los  Angeles person; I listened to  Kraftwerk and
'Cars' by Gary Numan."

(A concerned pause.) "Oh ... is  your foot twitching, Dan? Let me  fix
it for you . . .

(Insert foot massage here.)

"That was a  decade ago, and  years have passed  since I had  had that
particular dream of wanting to become a machine.

"Then  four  summers  ago  when I  was  visiting  my  parents down  in
McMinnville, I accidentally fell back into the body/machine dream. "It
was  a summer  day -  too bright  out -  and I  was walking  amid the
family's apple orchards and developed a brain-splitting, wasp's  sting
of a headache and  became nauseous. I walked  into the house and  went
into the basement to be cool, but I threw up on the cement floor  next
to the  washer and  dryer. I  lost control  of my  left arm and then I
passed out on top of a  stack of laundry for three hours.  Dad freaked
out over the paralysis and drove me  into the city and we did a  brain
scan to check for stroke damage and clots and stuff.

"They injected all sorts of isotopes  into me and I found myself  part
of a  literal body/machine  system -  being bodily  radioactive -  and
inserted like  a fuel  rod into  a body-scanning  machine. I  remember
saying, to myself, 'So this is the feeling of being a machine.' I felt
more curious  about death  than I  felt afraid;  I felt  glad to be no
longer human for a few brief minutes."

"Was there a blood clot?" I asked.

"No.  Simple  sunstroke.  And  the  feeling  of  my  being  a  machine
evaporated quickly,  too. But  the whole  incident made  me decide  to
discover my body, pronto. Here," she said, scratching my tender  inner
forearms lightly with  her fingernails, sending  me into paroxysms  of
delight. "How does that feel?"

"Glrmmph."

"Just as I thought. People who do repetitive work on keyboards tend lo
have highly erogenous  forearms and shoulder  cuffs. Now, you  scratch
me."

I did, and then  we scratched forearms together,  and I felt like  the
two of us were in a nature documentary on mating African veld animals.

"Of course," she said,  "you'll have to learn  all of this stuff,  and
you're going to have to reciprocate on me."

"Body 101-sign me up now."

"Daniel. . ."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever been held before?"

"You always ask me  these embarrassing, left-field questions.  What do
you mean, have I ever been held before?"

"Exactly what I said. Have you?"

"Why, ummm ..." I thought about it. "No."

"I thought so."

I realized that  I envied Karla's  way of just  talking about whatever
was on her mind. She's  fearless, exploring her theories and  neuroses
with the conviction that self-knowledge will bring the solutions.  The
more I notice this, the more I admire this.

We did spoons for a while, and then she said, "I remember being young,
in school, being  told that our  bodies would yield  enough carbon for
2,000 pencils and enough  calcium for 30 sticks  of chalk, as well  as
enough iron for one nail. What  a weird thing to tell kids.  We should
be told our bodies can transmutate into diamonds and wine goblets  and
teacups and balloons."

"And diskettes," I added.

* * *

Q: If there were two of you, which one would win?

Jeffersonian individualism

victim

winner

loser

thief

http://www.city.palo-alto.ca/

Lexus.cel phone.traffic.

My body type was in last year.

We can no  longer create the  feeling of an  era . .  . of time  being
particular to one spot in time.


WEDNESDAY


Bug ranted a bit  about Lego in the  afternoon while we ate  Arrowroot
cookies and bounced on the trampoline. The air was cold and our breath
visible. We were  all wearing laundry-day  junk clothes and  we looked
like scarecrows flailing  about. Why are  we all so  hopeless with our
bodies?

Bug said, "You know what really depresses the hell out of me? The  way
that kids nowadays don't have to use their imagination when they  play
with Lego. Say they buy  a Lego car kit -  in the old days you'd  open
the box and out tumbled sixty  pieces you had to assemble to  make the
car. Nowadays, you  open the box  and a whole  car, pre-fucking-built,
pops out - the car itself is all one piece. Big woo. Some imagination
challenger that is. It's total cheating."

I got to thinking of my own Lego superstitions. "When I was young,  if
I built a house out of Lego, the  house had to be all in one color.  I
used to  play Lego  with lan  Ball who  lived up  the street,  back in
Bellingham. He used to make his  house out of whatever color brick  he
happened to grab. Can you imagine  the sort of code someone like  that
would write?"

"I used to build with mixed colors . . ." said Bug.

"What do I know?" I said, pulling my foot out of it.

Karla  cut in,  "I had  this friend,  Bradley, who  had a  major Lego
collection and I'd cheat, lie, and  steal to go to his house  and play
with it. Then one day Bradley's mother put his Lego in the bathtub  to
wash it off.  It was never  the same -  diseased, sort of  - stinking,
like the water was turning  into feta cheese inside the  plastic tubes
of the locking devices.  I think his memories  of Lego must be  pretty
different from my own."

Bug said, "For designing games,  Lego makes a great quickie  simulator
for figuring out mazes for gaming levels."

"You've designed games before?" I asked.

"I've done everything you can do on computers. I'm 31."

Maybe we underestimate Bug. When I  stop and think about him, he's  so
full of contradictions - it's like there's one big piece of him,  that
if only I knew it, it would make sense of everything.

* * *

Since Michael's offers  came in, we've  all become really  quiet, I've
noticed. We're all mulling it over. Our doors are closed; phone  calls
are being made  to the 415  and 408 area  codes. Karla says  we're all
trying to figure out what we  really need in life, as opposed  to what
we simply want.

* * *

A weird shiatsu  moment: Karla focused  on a piece  of my chest,  just
above the  Xyphoid Process  (that weird  thing in  the middle  of your
ribs) and *bang* out of the  blue I started bawling. I couldn't  stop.
So I guess I have memories hidden away that I don't think about.

* * *

1999: The people were lying on the ground.

Demonize the symbolic analysts.

You're smarter than TV.

So what?

Uranium and Beethoven.

Define random

MFD-2DD

Ezekiel

Sony


THURSDAY


A random sort of day.

Woke up late; went  on a CD rampage  at Silver Platters in  Northgate;
bacon burger  at  the IHOP.  Karla  taught me  some  shiatsu basics  
pressure points and  stuff. ("Massage is  a two way  street, mister. .
.")

* * *

I’ve been with Karla way over a  month now, and just when I think  I'm
starting to understand her, something happens that makes me realize  I
don't. One truly  weird thing about  her is that  she never calls  her
family or talks about them. All she'll say is that they're  psychotic,
as if everybody else's family isn't.

She's  a  good deflector.  She  structures conversations  so  that her
family never arises. Like today,  I brought up the subject  of phoning
her parents simply because it  was Sunday (call me old-fashioned  - or
at least an AT&T consumer victim) and she said, "McMinnville, Oregon 
area code 503."

"Huh?"

"North America is running out of area codes. There's only two or three
left, and they'll be gone soon enough. Suburban Toronto, Ontario, just
got 905. West Los Angeles got 310. Suburban Atlanta got 706. Faxes and
modems are  eating up  phone numbers  faster than  anyone ever  though
they'd be eaten up. We've exhausted our supply of numbers."

"Your point being . . . ?"

"Only one thing -  eight-digit phone numbers. Disastrous,  because all
new phone numbers will be  like those European numbers that  are eight
digits long and impossible to remember."

Karla then discussed a theory called "Five plus-or-minus-two memory."

"Most humans can only remember five digits at most. Exceptional people
can remember up to seven  (Michael, incidentally knows pi up  to, like
2,000 digits). So the chances are that phone numbers will be broken up
info  four   and  four,   for  easier   memorization,"  she  announced
confidently.

"So are you going to call your family, or what?" I asked.

"Maybe. But let me digress a  bit. Here's something interesting . .  .
did you know you can figure  out how important your state or  province
was circa 1961 by adding up the code's three digits? Zero equals 10."

"No."

"It's  because zeros  used to  take forever  to go  around the  little
rotary dial -  while ones zipped  along quickest. The  lowest possible
code, 212, went to the busiest  place, New York City. Los Angeles  got
213. Alaska got 907. See my point?"

Karla always comes up with the best digressions. "Yes."

"Imagine  Angie Dickinson  in Los  Angeles (213)  telephoning Suzanne
Pleshette   in   Las   Vegas  (702)   sometime   before   the  Kennedy
assassination.  She  dials the  final  '2,' breaks  a  fingernail, and
cusses a shit under  her breath, irritated at  Suzanne for being in  a
location with a loser area code."

"How come you won't call your family?"

"Dan, let it rest."

* * *

Karla's learning things about me, too. Like the fact that I don't like
shopping but I am  a new product freak.  Slap a "NEW" sticker  onto an
old product,  and it's  in my  cart. The  day they  introduced Crystal
Pepsi, I  harassed the  local Safeway  manager almost  daily until  it
arrived. I thought this new Pepsi was going to be like regular  Pepsi,
except minus the plutonium stuff that turns it brown. Then I tasted it
- it was like 7-Up and Dr. Pepper and Pepsi and tap water all sort  of
randomly mixed and decolorized. Downer!

I guess Pepsi wishes they had John Sculley at the helm for that one.

Karla brought me a whole fun-pak of clear products - Crystal Close-up,
All  "free"  detergent. Crystal  Pepsi  (I guess  she  didn't know  my
feelings  about it),  and Crystal  Mint breath  drops. In  a universe
parallel to ours, she no doubt brought me Crystal Bologna, too.

* * *

nCube computers

simulating the Tokyo

power grid

They left a dead escalator, chewed and torn lying on the pavement like
a dead gray candy necklace.

Imagine:

In Florida the wind is rattling the chimes.

You look over the alligators and

the sea grass and water. There it is:

The rocket's burn. The best century ever.

We were here. But now it's time to go.

The past is a finite resource.

Shinhatsubai!


FRIDAY


Another Presto Log fire in the living room. Abe lectured us about  his
Theory of Lego. It felt like school.

"Have you ever noticed  that Lego plays a  far more important role  in
the lives of computer people than in the general population? To a one,
computer  technicians  spent  huge  portions  of  their  youth heavily
steeped in  Lego and  its highly  focused, solitude-promoting culture.
Lego was their common denominator toy."

Nobody was disagreeing.

"Now, I  think  it  is  safe  to say  that  Lego  is  a  potent three
dimensional  modeling tool  and a  language in  itself. And  prolonged
exposure to any language, either visual or verbal, undoubtedly  alters
the way a child perceives its universe. Examine the toy briefly . . ."

We were riveted.

"First, Lego  is ontologically  not unlike  computers. This  is to say
that a  computer by  itself is,  well .  . .  nothing. Computers  only
become something when given a specific application. Ditto Lego. To use
an Excel spreadsheet or  to build a racing  car - this is  why we have
computers  and Lego.  A PC  or a  Lego brick  by itself  is inert  and
pointless:  a  doorstop;  litter.  Made  of  acrylonitrile   butadiene
stryrene   (ABS)   plastic,  Lego's   discrete   modular  bricks   are
indestructible and fully intended to be nothing except themselves."

We  pass  the  snacks.  "Soylent  Melts":  Jack  cheese  and jalapenos
microwaved onto Triscuits.

"Second, Lego is 'binary'  - a yes/no structure;  that is to say,  the
little nubblies  atop any  given Lego  block are  either connected  to
another unit  of Lego  or they  are not.  Analog relationships  do not
exist."

"Monogamous?" asks Susan.

"Possibly. An interesting analogy. Third, Lego anticipates a future of
pixelated ideas. It is digital. The charm and fun of Lego derives from
reducing the organic  to the modular:  a zebra built  of little cubes;
Cape Cod houses digitized through the Hard Copy TV lens that pixelates
the victim's face into little squares of color."

* * *

Karla and I discussed  what we're planning to  do. We don't have  much
time to  choose; Michael  needs a  response by  the end  of this week.
Michael is  offering me  a 24K  salary plus  1.5 percent  of EQUITY as
opposed to  my Microsoft  26K plus  150 shares  vested over 3.5 years.
Plus the opportunity to be a coder, and be closer to Karla on the food
chain, and even best of all,  the opportunity to be with Karla  in the
same product group again.


SATURDAY


It was another  rainy night that  called for a  fire. We'd most  of us
spent the day processing all of our new career option data.

We ran out of fire logs and  had to light a real fire with  flammables
culled from around the house: a Brawny paper towel carton full of junk
mail and bits of  furniture too ugly to  even throw out. And  then Bug
found  a  packaged fire  log  in the  garage  with (he  read  from the
wrapping),  "  'Realistic-looking flames  and  colors' -  you  can put
anything  on a  label and  people will  believe it.  We are  one sick
species, I tell you."

* * *

The fire was huge and felt religious, and triggered among all of us  a
discussion  of our  youthful pyromaniac  tendencies. Our  conversation
became an unexpected bonding experience  for us. We talked about  pipe
bombs, M-80s, Lysol spray  can flame-throwers, sodium chunks  borrowed
from  chem labs,  potassium nitrate  melted together  with sugar  into
smoke bombs, firecracker  bricks, MJB cans  filled with gasoline  into
which lit  matchbooks are  tossed, and  methane bubbled  through water
mixed with Joy dishwashing liquid ("fiery bubbles of doom").

* * *

Question: Is there an alt.pyro on the Net? Probably. There's something
there for everybody.

* * *

Susan was able to dig up area code data from, of all places,  Trieste,
Italy - on the Net. It turns out that North America is creating up  to
640 new area codes by allowing digits other than zero or one to go  in
the middle. So there can be area codes like 647 and 329. With  roughly
eight million phone lines possible  per code, "That makes for  roughly
5.1 billion new portals to fun."

Karla  was  relieved that  we  don't have  to  have eight-digit  phone
numbers, "at least until some new, as yet uninvented technology,  eats
up the old ones again."

Then  we digressed  into a  discussion of  how the  word "dialing"  is
itself  such  an  anachronism   -  a  holdover  from   rotary  phones.
"Inputting" would be more true. And who came up with the word  "pound"
for the "#" symbol. Wouldn't "grid"  have been easier and more fun?  I
mean, "pound"!

Or think of how dumb it is too say, "I'm going to the record store."

Technology!

* * *

You may

have already won!

Technology of mythic strength given surrealistic applications.

Socially disengaged meritocratic elites.

Sporting goods stores always smell like the most

advanced plastics.

Did the neutron bomb ever actually get built?


SUNDAY


Bug is  going to  accept Michael's  offer. This  is out  of character,
given that Bug worships Bill and the corporate culture of Microsoft so
much. But he seems  quite jolly and decisive  about the move. I  think
the fact he was slated for transfer to the Converter Group in Building
Seventeen, a notoriously glum Campus  locale, added some oomph to  his
decision. Bug  is a  good debugger.  That's how  he got  his name,  so
Michael's probably getting  a good deal  in hiring him.  I still can't
figure out why he never got stock options.

Todd, too, has decided to  go, perhaps also propelled by  his transfer
into the OLE Group (Ole!), over in the Old Buildings.

This is the Object Linking and Embedding Group that writes code for an
application allowing a  user to drag  part of, say,  an Excel document
into a Word document. About as much fun as it sounds.

Susan's accepting - and she's forking up some of her vesting money  as
seed capital for a larger equity stake - and she's clinching the title
of Creative Director. "I'll be the Paul Allen of interactivity."

Abe, however,  is saying  no. "What  - you  guys want  to leave a sure
thing?" he keeps asking us. "You think Microsoft's going to shrink, or
are you nuts?"

"That's not the point, Abe."

"What is the point, then?"

"One-Point-Oh," I said.

"What?" replied Abe.

"Being One-Point-Oh. The first to do something cool or new."

"And so in order to be 'One-Point-Oh' you'd forfeit all of this -" Abe
fumbles for le mot juste, and expands arms widely to showcase a filthy
living  room covered  with Domino's  boxes, junk  mail solicitations,
Apple hard hats, three Federal Express baseball caps, and Nerf Gatling
guns) "- security? How do you know you're not just trading places .  .
. coding  like fuck  every day  except with  a palm  tree outside  the
window instead of a cedar?"

Karla reiterated what she said to Todd, about humanity's dreaming, but
Abe is  too scared,  I think,  to make  the leap.  He's too set in his
ways. Repetition breeds inertia.

* * *

My computer's subconscious  files continue still  to surprise me.  Who
would have known that these are the words my machine wanted to  speak?
Well, actually,  I know  that it's  me speaking  through the computer,
sort of like  those really quiet  guys who go  all nuts when  you give
them a  wooden puppet  - ventriloquists  - and  these aspects of their
personalities you didn't even know existed start screaming out.


MONDAY


Abe has actually provoked Karla  and me into deciding, *yes*.  We both
gave Shaw our two  weeks' notices, and basically  he said we might  as
well leave  at the  end of  the week  since we're  not currently "with
project."

With  start-ups:  you  get  a  crap  shoot  at  mega-equity  but  more
importantly, it's true, you do  get a chance to be  "One-Point-Oh." To
be the  first to do the first version of something.

We had to ask ourselves, "Are you One-Point-Oh?" - the answer is  what
separates the Microserfs from the Cyberlords.

But beyond this there's what Karla  said - about being human, and  the
dream of humanity.  I get this  little feeling that  we can all  of us
speed  up  the dream,  dream  in color,  dream  in volume,  and  dream
together down south. We can, and will, fabricate the waking dream.


THURSDAY

Later that week


Preparing for this weekend's yard  sale, I found a half-pound  lump of
hamburger meat in the garage that  had been sitting in a Miracle  Whip
jar for about four months -  an experiment I had forgotten about.  The
meat was still kind of pink, with gray fuzz growing on it. "A test  to
see if the beef industry  pumps up cattle with preservatives,"  I told
Karla.

She looked at  the jar. "Your  brain," she said  dismissively, "during
the last half-year here at Microsoft."

* * *

Mom phoned. She sounds so much better now that the economic stress  is
off her and that she's exercising. After a short while I got to asking
what it is that Dad does  for Michael exactly - "So what's  Dad's job,
Mom?"

"Well, I'm not sure. He's never here. He's driving with Michael up and
down the Peninsula .  . . picking things  up. Fixing up the  office, I
think."

"Carpentry?"

In a whisper: "It keeps him out of my hair all day. And he seems happy
to be needed." Resumption of normal  tone: "So when will we be  seeing
you down here?"

"Next week."

* * *

My body: Today I've been feeling angry  all day, and I have to get  it
off my chest. I  went to Microsoft for  the last time to  clean out my
office. Our  section, having  recently shipped,  was unusually  empty,
even for a Sunday. I was all  alone there for the first time, ever,  I
think.

I got to thinking of my cramped, love-starved, sensationless existence
at Microsoft - and I got so pissed off. And now I just want to  forget
the whole business and get on  with living - with being alive.  I want
to forget  the way  my body  was ignored,  year in,  year out,  in the
pursuit of code, in the pursuit of somebody else's abstraction.

There's something about a monolithic tech culture like Microsoft  that
makes humans seriously rethink fundamental aspects of the relationship
between their  brains and  bodies -  their souls  and their ambitions;
things and thoughts.

Maybe if this thing with Karla hadn't started I never even would  have
noticed - I'd have accepted my sensory-deprivation lifestyle without a
second thought. She's helping  me get closer to  getting a life -  and
having a . . . personality.

* * *

I erased the office voice mail message that has served me well for the
past six months:

"Thank  you  for  phoning the  powerful  Underwood  personal messaging
center.

Press one for Broyhill furniture

Press two for STP, the racer's edge

Press three for the roomy, affordable Buick Skylark

Press four for Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat

Press five for Turtle Wax

Press six for Dan

Press pound to repeat this menu."

* * *

Shaw, of all people, came in,  and he made this awkward little  speech
about how  he was  going to  miss me,  but I  just wasn't in the mood.
Shaw, ever the Boomersomething, says that he never got into Lego  when
he was a kid. "Too 1950s  for me. I liked Kenner's modular  skyscraper
kits. 'If it's from Kenner, it's fun . . . SQUAWK!'"

* * *

Shaw did point out that now that we're off Microsoft's e-mail  system,
we're going to get to invent new log addresses.

I think when people invent their Net log names, they reveal more about
themselves than their  given names ever  reveal. I'm going  to have to
choose my new name carefully.

I figure there must have been a time in the past, like the year  1147,
when there was  a frenzy of  family-naming - Smith  and Goodfellow and
Green and stuff - not unlike the current self-naming frenzy spawned by
the  Net.  Abe says  that  within 100  years,  many people  will  have
abandoned their pro-millennial names and opted for "Nettier" names. He
says it'd be inspiring to see people use other letters of the keyboard
in their names, like %, &, ™ and ©.

* * *

Susan asked me later how I ended up at Microsoft in the first place. I
told her, "No  big surprise: I  was 22 .  . . it  seemed like a studly
thing at  the time.  Microsoft got  what it  wanted and  I got  what I
wanted, so all's fair and no regrets."

I asked her: She said it was  to get away from her parents and  having
to visit either of them because they were both trying to rip apart her
loyalties in some nasty custody war.

"I wanted to go to a place where loyalty wasn't an issue. Ha! I wanted
to not have a life because life  back East sucked big time. So I  made
the choice to come here - we all made the choice to come here.  Nobody
was holding  a carbine  up to  our temples.  So us  crabbing about our
zero-life factors isn't  up for debate,  really. Yet do  you remember,
Dan -  do you  remember ever  having a  life? Ever?  What is a life? I
think I once  had one -  or at least  dreamed of having  one - and now
with going to Oop!, I kind of feel like I have a hope of life again."

I said I remembered having a life, back with Jed and being a kid,  and
Susan said being a kid counted as life only sort of. "It's what you do
after you're a kid when life counts for real."

I said, "I think I have a life now. With Karla, I mean. "

She said, "You guys really like each other, don't you?"

And I said - no, I whispered-"I love her."

I've never told anyone that yet - except Karla. It felt like I  jumped
off a  steep cliff  into deep  blue water.  And then  I wanted to tell
everybody.

* * *

More body talk: Karla believes that human beings remember  everything.
"All stimulation generates  a memory -  and these memories  have to go
somewhere. Our bodies are essentially diskettes," she says. "You  were
right."

"Lucky for me" I reply," my own memories tend to get stored in my neck
and shoulder blades. My body has never felt so . . . alive - I  wasn't
even aware I had one until you woke it up today. Life's too good."

* * *

Sometimes I think  my subconscious has  bad days, and  I can't believe
how mundane the stuff  that I write into  the file is. But  isn't that
the deal with  a person's subconscious  . . .  that it stores  all the
things you aren't noticing visibly?

* * *

I'm driving up Interstate  5. It is raining  and I remember I  have to
pick up paper towels and decaffeinated coffee at Costco.

And how did you feel about that?

Mom. . .

Dad . . .

I'm  okay.  I  am  not  being  starved,  or  beaten,  or unnecessarily
frightened.

Dropshadow lettering

Granite backgrounds

Hand

Held

Game

This is the end of the Age of Authenticity.

Oracle

NeXT

Ampex

Electronic Arts


SATURDAY


Garage sale day.

It was a real "Zen-o-thon" - we decided the time had arrived to  shake
ourselves of all our worldly crap and become minimalists - or at least
try starting from scratch again - more psychic pioneering.

"This is so 'Zenny,' " Bug said happily, as some poor cretin purchased
his  used electric  razor (ugh!)  as well  as his  collection of  Elle
MacPherson merchandise.

Also for sale:

	• Japan Airlines inflatable 747

	• official Hulk Hogan WWF focus-free 110 signature camera

	• antique Ghostbuster squeeze toys

	• Nick the Greek professional gambling home board game

	• Ping-Pong table

	• shoe box full of squirt guns

	• blenders (2)

	• vegetable juicer

	• dehumidifier

	• unopened cans of aerosolized cheese food products

	• M. C. Escher pop-up books

	• far too many Dilophosaurus figurines

	• huge Sony  box full of  collected Styrofoam packing  peanuts
	and packing chunks from untold assorted consumer electronics

The big surprise? Everyone sold everything - everything - even the box
of Styrofoam. Bug's right: We're one sick species.

* * *

And my car sold, too - in a flash, to the first person who came around
to look at it. Wayne's World  did wonders for the secondary market  of
AMC products.

Actually, the Hornet was such a bucket I was surprised it sold at all.
I was worried I'd have to drive it south. Or abandon it somewhere.

Now I am virtually possessionless. Having nothing feels liberating.

* * *

National Enquirer:

"Loni's Diary Rips Burt Apart"

He threatened her with a gun in jealous rage

He locked her out of her honeymoon suite

He hid vodka in water bottles

PLUS: Burt: "I wanted to ditch her at the altar."

Exclusive interview on his tell-all book

I do not want this to be me.


SUNDAY


Today we left for California and Karla did her first major flip-out on
me. I suppose I was being insensitive, but I think she overreacted  by
far. In packing her Microbus, she buried all of the cassettes we  were
going to be using  for the trip deep  inside the bowels of  luggage. I
said, "God, how could you be so stupid!"

Then she went  crazy and threw  a toaster oven  at me and  said things
like, "Don't you ever call me stupid," and "I am not stupid," and  she
piled into the van  and drove off. Todd  was standing nearby and  just
shrugged and went back to bungeeing his Soloflex on top of his  Supra.
I had  to take  off in  the Acura  and catch  up with  her down by the
Safeway, and we made up.

* * *

Karla said good-bye to her old geek house's cat, Lentil, named as such
because that's  how big  its brain  is. Nerds  tend to  have cats, not
dogs. I think  this is because  if you have  to go to  Boston or to  a
COMDEX or something, cats can take care of themselves for a few  days,
and when you return, they'll probably remember you. Low maintenance.,

* * *

Bug was  like a  little kid,  all excited  about our  "convoy" down to
California and was  romanticizing the trip  already, before we'd  even
left. The worst part was, he had his ghetto blaster on and was playing
that old '70s song, "Convoy," and  so the song was stuck in  our heads
all day.

Cars for the trip:

Me: Michael's Acura

Karla: her Microbus

Todd: his Supra

Susan and Bug: their Tauri with U-Haul trailers

Todd said that our "car architecture" for our journey is "scalable and
integrated - and fully modular - just like Apple products!"

* * *

Somewhere near Olympia, Bug's car rounded a bend and it was so weird 
gravity  pulled  me into  an  exit off-ramp.  And  then everyone  else
trickled in, too. Served him right for lodging the virus of that dopey
song in our heads. It was like in third grade, when you ditch someone.
It just happens. Humans are horrible.

Then we all  felt really horrible  for ditching Bug,  and we went  out
chasing him, but  we couldn't find  him and I  got a speeding  ticket.
Karma. I-5 is a radar hell.

* * *

During a roadside break I asked Karla why she didn't want to go  visit
her parents  in McMinnville,  but she  said it  was because  they were
psychotic, and so I didn't press the matter.

The Microbus is covered in gray bondo with orange bondo spots all over
it. We call it The Carp.

* * *

We found Bug south of Eugene. He didn't even know about the ditch,  so
now all of us have a dark secret between us.

* * *

Along I-5, just outside a suburb of Eugene, Oregon, there were all  of
these houses for sale next to the freeway, and they were putting these
desperate signs up to flog them: if you lived here, you would be  home
right now. Karla honked the horn, waved out the window of the Microbus
and pointed at the sign. Convoy humor.

We made this rule that we had to honk every time we spotted road kill,
and we nearly burned out our horns.

* * *

On a diner TV set we saw  that in Arizona, the eight men and  women of
Biosphere 2 emerged into the real world after spending two years in  a
hermetically sealed, self-referential, self-sufficient environment.  I
certainly  empathized with  them. And  their uniforms  were like  Star
Trek.

* * *

We switched vehicles and I drove Karla's Microbus for a while, but the
Panasonic rice cooker in the rear filled with rattling cassette  tapes
drove me nuts. It was buried too deeply inside the mounds o' stuff  to
move, so around Klamath Falls we switched vehicles again.

* * *

We crossed the California border and  had dinner in a cafe. We  talked
about society's accelerating rate of  change. Karla said, "We live  in
an era of  no historical precedents  - this is  to say, history  is no
longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes.  You
can't look at, say, the War of 1709 (I made this date up, although  no
doubt there  probably was  a War  of 1709)  and draw parallels between
then and now. They didn't  have Federal Express, SkyTel paging,  1-800
numbers, or  hip replacement  surgery in  1709 -  or a  picture of the
entire planet inside their heads."

She glurped a milkshake. "The cards are being shuffled; new games  are
being  invented.  And  we're  actually  driving  to  the  actual  card
factory."

* * *

Psychosis! We were discussing Susan's new image at dinner, when I told
Karla about this really neat  thing Susan's mother did when  Susan was
young. Susan's mother told Susan that  she had an enormous IQ so  that
Susan could never try and pretend she was dumb when she got older.  So
because of this, Susan never did  feign stupidity - she never had  any
fear of science  or math. Maybe  this is the  roots of her  whole Riot
Grrrl transformation.

On  hearing this  news, Karla  went nuts.  It turns  out that  Karla's
parents always told her that she was stupid. Everything in life  Karla
had ever achieved - her degrees  and her ability to work with  numbers
and code, had  always been against  a gradient of  her parents saying,
"Now why'd you want to go filling your  head with that kind of thing 
that's for your brother Karl to do."

"Karl's nice, and we like each  other," Karla said, "but he's a  total
100-center of the bell  curve and no way  around it. My parents  drove
him crazy expecting him to be a particle physicist. All Karl wants  to
do is manage a Lucky  Mart and watch football. They've  always refused
to see us as we are."

Karla was off and  running: "Here's an example  - once I went  home to
visit and the phone was broken, so I began fixing it, and Dad took  it
away and said, 'Karl should give that a try,' and Karl just wanted  to
watch TV  and couldn't  fix a  phone if  it spat  on him  and so I was
screaming at my Dad, Karl was screaming at my Dad, and my Mom came  in
and tried to  discuss 'women's things'  and drag me  into the kitchen.
Meatloaffuckingrecipes."

Karla was just fuming. She can't bring herself to forgive her  parents
for trying to brainwash her into thinking she was dumb all her life.

* * *

Later, we got  too bagged to  drive, so we  pulled into a  Days Inn in
Yreka. During a pre-bedtime shiatsu break we started talking about Spy
vs. Spy, that old comic in  Mad magazine, and how the very  first time
you read it, you arbitrarily chose  either the black Spy or the  white
Spy  and  you  voted  for  your  color  choice  unflinchingly  for the
remaining period of your Mad magazine-reading phase.

I always voted for  the black Spy; Karla  voted for the white.  Silly,
but for a moment we had a note of genuine tension.

Karla  broke  the tension.  She  said, "Well,  it's  at least  binary,
right?" And I said, "Yes," and she said, "Are we geeks, or what?"

(Insert one more foot massage here.)

* * *

Even later on, Karla spoke to me again. "There's more, Dan. About  the
stupid business. About the sunstroke."

I wasn't surprised to hear this. "I figured as much. So . . . you want
to tell me?"

The stars outside the window were sort of creamy, and I couldn't  tell
if I was seeing clouds or the Milky Way.

"There was a reason I was back at the house a few years ago . . .  the
time I had the sunstroke episode."

"Yeah?"

"Let me put this another way.  Remember back up at Microsoft when  you
brought me the cucumber roll. . . just out of the blue like that?"

"I remember."

"Well -" (she kissed my eyebrow) "- it's the first time I can remember
ever wanting  to really  eat, in  like ten  years." I  was quiet.  She
continued talking:  "Back when  I had  my sunstroke  episode, I hadn't
eaten  in so  long and  I weighed  about as  much as  a Franklin  Mint
figurine.  My body  was starting  to die  inside and  my parents  were
worried that I'd gone too far,  and I think I even scared  myself. You
think I'm small  now, Buster, you'd  better see .  . . well  you won't
because I destroyed all photos .  . . pictures of myself taken  during
my 'phase' as my parents call it."

She was fetal and I had my left hand underneath her feet and my  right
on top of  her head. I  cupped her closer  and pressed her  against my
stomach and said, "You're my baby now: you're a thousand diamonds -  a
handful of lovers' rings - chalk for a million hopscotch games."

"I didn't want to do what I was doing, Dan - it just happened. My body
was the only way I could get  my message across and it was such  a bad
message. I crashed myself. In the end, it was work that saved my life.
But then work became my life - I was technically living but without  a
life. And I was so scared. I thought that work was all there was  ever
going to be. And oh, God, I  was so mean to everybody. But I  was just
running so scared. My parents.  They just won't accept what  was going
on with me. I see  them and I want to  starve. I can't let myself  see
them."

I put my forearm in the crook  of her knees and pulled her as  tightly
together as she could  go. Her neck rested  on my other arm.  I pulled
the blankets  over us,  and her  breath was  hot and  tiny, in  little
bursts like NutraSweet packets.

"There's just so much I want to forget, Dan. I thought I was going  to
be a READ ONLY file. I never thought I'd be . . . interactive."

I said, "Don't  worry about it,  Karla. Because in  the end we  forget
everything, anyway. We're human; we're amnesia machines."

* * *

It's late and Karla's asleep and blue by the light of the PowerBook.

I'm thinking of her  as I input these  words, my poor little  girl who
grew up in a  small town with a  family that did nothing  to encourage
her  to  use  her  miraculous brain,  that  thwarted  her  attempts at
intelligence - this frail  thing who reached out  to the world in  the
only way she knew, through numbers and lines of code in the hope  that
from there she would find  sensation and expression. I felt  this jolt
of energy  and this  sense of  honor to  be allowed  entrance into her
world - to  be with a  soul so hungry  and powerful and  needful to go
forth into the universe. I want to feed her.

I . . .

* * *

There's  this  term  used  in  computers,  where  you  try  and squish
something into another operating  system holus-bolus, and the  results
are not always  effective. The term  is called "spooging."  An example
might be,  "Consumers don't  know it,  yet, but  Microsoft is going to
spooge a lot of  the interface of Word  for Windows into the  Word for
Mac 6.0 version,  and rumor has  it the new  Mac version will  operate
slow as a glacier, too, because of it - it's too nonintuitive for  the
Mac-user."

I say this because I think I'm about to spooge here, but I can't think
of any other way to express what I feel.

For starters, it was funny, but after Karla told me about her and  her
family some more, about her eating problems, now a thing of the  past,
we got into a discussion of what may be the ultimate question: Is  our
universe ultimately digital or analog?

After this, as I said, Karla fell asleep, but I couldn't sleep myself.
What else is new?

I remembered something Antonella from Nintendo once told me about  her
job at a day-care center, about  storytelling to kids - about how  the
stories  the  children liked  the  best were  the  ones in  which  the
characters  fled  their  old planets  amid  great  explosions, leaving
everything behind them to start a new world.

And then I remembered this  book-writing program my mom told  me about
from  someone in  her library.  The big  deal in  book writing  is to
quickly establish at the very beginning what it is that the characters
want.

But I think that  the books I really  enjoy are the ones  in which the
characters realize, only  in the end,  what it was  that they secretly
wanted all along, but never even knew. And maybe this is what life  is
really like.

* * *

Anyway, I have  spooged. Good night  little PowerBook -  my world will
shortly end for today, as will the universe, whether digital or analog
- with sleep.

* * *

Personal

Computer

Stars

drinking glasses

wrapped in tissue paper

burnt arborite

dial telephones


[Formatter's note -  2 pages (104  - 105) of  nothing but 0's  and 1's
were deleted here]


3 Interiority


SATURDAY

(Several weeks later)


We took a few hours off to attend a Halloween barbecue at the chic San
Carlos home  of  Oop!'s  president and  CEO,  Ethan,  Mr. "Let's-Ship
Units!"

Also in attendance were a crew of Apple workers Ethan is scanning  for
"hireability."

* * *

The evening was a  typical geek get-together, and  conversation stayed
along conventional lines: the Menendez brothers, consumer and military
aviation, and hiring/firing gossip. But the mood was also tinged  with
an  atypical  moroseness: Crunchy  Frog  jokes blended  with  tales of
fiscal woe. Apple people  are all trying to  get laid off so  they can
get the  layoff financial  package -  so everybody's  trying to  be as
useless as possible. It's  a shock, let me  tell you. And they're  all
frightened the PowerPC's going to  bomb and they're worried about  the
Newton - and they're frightened they might merge with Motorola or  IBM
and lose their identity, and -  gosh, they have a lot to  worry about,
it seems.

"It's all so . . .  anti-coding" said Todd, dressed as Atlas.  (Speedo
swim-suit and a globe tied to his shoulder. Show-off.) "It's the total
opposite of Microsoft. It's not  the way, you know, we've  been raised
to think about Apple."

"Hey, Pal - just goes to show you what happens without a Bill to  whip
people into shape," said Ethan, dressed as "Money" - his face  painted
green underneath  a green  George Washington  wig that  was actually a
rented Marilyn  Monroe wig  misted with  green hair  spray. "Without a
charismatic at the helm, you're history."

Apple is kind of depressing,  we agreed dispiritedly. Not at  all what
we expected, but we  bravely try and Keep  the Faith. We're trying  to
find somebody to give us an Apple campus tour.

Nobody rules here in the Valley.

No Bills.

It's a bland anarchy. It takes some getting used to.

* * *

Ethan, Oop!'s president, is somewhat evil. Well . . . amusingly  evil.
Smarmy?  Perhaps  that's  the  right  word.  White-toothed  and always
impeccably dressed, he's  what Karla calls  a "killer nerd."  For some
reason, he's paying a lot of  attention to me and keeps giving  me all
sorts  of  confidant-type  information. I'm  not  sure  whether to  be
flattered or to consult an exorcist.

Sitting next to a burning  Tiki torch spiked into the  ground, beneath
an  orange  tree,  Karla  said  to  me,  "You  know,  Ethan's  been  a
millionaire and  filed for  Chapter Eleven  three times  already - and
he's only 33. And there are hundreds of these guys down here.  They're
immune to money. They just sort of assume it'll appear like rain."

While decoding Ethan's  existence we were  removing stray grass  seeds
from each  other's Clockwork  Orange thug  costumes. I  said, "There's
something about  Ethan that's  not quite  oxymoronic, yet  still self
contradictory - like an 18-wheeler with Neutrogena written on the side
- I can't explain it. The  whole Silicon Valley is oxymoronic -  geeky
and rich and hip. I'm undecided if I even like Ethan - he's definitely
not one of us. He's a different archetype."

* * *

Inspired by Ethan's  costume, we discussed  money. We decided  that if
the  government put  Marilyn Monroe  on a  dollar coin,  it would  be
popular enough  to succeed.  "And if  they want  to replace  the five
dollar bill with a coin," said Susan, approaching us from the hibachi,
"they can use Elvis."

Susan didn't go  out of her  way to dress  up this year  and came as a
biker chick. She was miffed at discovering that the assembly  language
programmer from  General Magic  she'd been  chatting up  all night was
married. She swigged Chardonnay from a bottle, yanked an unripe orange
from a tree, and said, "You  guys are talking about Ethan? Being  with
Ethan is  kind of  like, well  . .  . like  when you're  sleeping with
somebody who doesn't  know what to  do in bed  but who thinks  they're
really hot stuff - and they're rubbing one part of your body over  and
over, thinking they've found your 'Magic Spot' when all they're doing,
in fact, is annoying you."

Susan  and  Ethan  never  agree   on  anything,  but  it's  not   sexy
disagreeing. It's just disagreeing.

There was a pause as the party slowed down, and Karla said, "Isn't  it
weird, the way Michael arrived  without a costume, but he  still looks
like he's in costume?" She was right. Poor, unearthly Michael.

* * *

Ethan was telling us the story  of how he hooked up with  Michael, how
they met  shortly after  Michael's mystery  trip to  Cupertino, at the
Chili's restaurant on the Stevens Creek Boulevard strip - a few blocks
away  from  Apple  - a  tastefully  landscaped  four-lane corridor  of
franchised food and metallically-skinned tech headquarters.

"Michael  was  inking  out  all of  the  vowels  on  his menu,"  Ethan
reminisced  fondly,  sitting down  with  us under  the  tree. "He  was
'Testing the legibility of the text in the absence of information,' as
I was later informed. And when I saw him order a dozen tortillas, some
salsa, and a side of Thousand Island dressing, I knew there had to  be
something there. How rrrright I was."

"Michael is  going to  be your  mother lode  for the mid-1990s?" Susan
asked ingenuously.

"Well, Miss Equity - for your sake, you'd better hope so."

* * *

We  went in  the house  to warm  up. Ethan's  living room  is painted
entirely in  white enamel,  and lining  the ceiling's  perimeter are a
hundred or so 1970s Dirty Harry bank surveillance cameras whirring and
rotating, all linked lo a wall of blue-and-white, almost-dead TV sets.
A surveillance fantasy. "I used lo date an installation artist from UC
Santa Cruz," is all Ethan says about his art.

His house is small, but I think he enjoys being able to tell people he
lives in San Carlos.  San Carlos, just south  of Palo Alto, is  called
Nerd Hill. The big problem in San Carlos is, apparently, deer -  which
eat all the  rose shoots and  the young tree  buds. "There's this  guy
there who sells  bottles of mountain-lion  urine he collects  at zoos.
You spritz  the stuff  around the  yard to  scare the  deer away. It's
like, 'Hey, pal - check out the cougar piss!'" Ethan held up a  small,
clear-yellow vial.  "I'm investing  in a  biotech firm  that tricks e.
coli bacteria into manufacturing cougar pheromones."

Ethan is  so extreme.  He has  this Patek  Phillipe watch,  which cost
maybe ¥2,000,000 (purchased at Tokyo's Akihabara district, the nirvana
of geek consumption, with all signage apparently in Japanese, English,
and  Russian).  He  says  that every  time  he  tells  the time,  he's
amortizing the cost.

"Well, I'm down to $5.65 a glance, now. If I check the time every hour
from now to the year 2023, I'll be down to a dime per look."

* * *

Ethan's  nine blender  settings are  labeled with  little LaserWriter
labels in 7-point Franklin Gothic:

	1) Asleep

	2) In flite movie

	3) Disneyland at age 25

	4) Good $8.00 movie

	5) IMAX with Dolby

	6) Lunch w/ D. Geffen and B. Diller

	7) Disneyland at age 10

	8) Aneurysm

	9) Spontaneous combustion

* * *

Ethan's dandruff is truly shocking,  but you know, life isn't  like TV
commercials. Karla and I spent thirty minutes trying to think of tell
your-friend-he-has-dandruff scenarios that wouldn't insult him, and in
the end, we couldn't. It's so  odd, because every other aspect of  his
grooming is so immaculate.

* * *

3:10  A.M.  Just  got  back  from  Ethan's  party.  We're  "flying  to
Australia" tonight  - that's  our in-house  code word  for pulling  an
insane, 36- to 48-hour coding  run in preparation for a  meeting Ethan
has with venture capitalists.

* * *

E-mail from Abe:

You actually left.  I never thought  that could happen.  How could you
have left Microsoft so EASILY!?!? It's such a good set up. The stock's
supposed to split in Spring. Who's  yourBill? I'm putting word out  on
wire at Microsoft  to locate new  roomates, but still  it feels pretty
strange to be without roommates. A whole month now! I'm writing my  ad
for the inhouse BBS:

"SPACE! . . .  Not your final frontier  in this instance, but  there's
lots  of it  here and  its not  a bad  deal: Redmond,  5 minutes  from
Microsoft.  Live  in  regal  early  1970s  splender.  DolbyTHX  sound.
Adirondack style chair made from old skis. Trampoline. Own  bathrooom.
Pets okay. $235.00"

BTW: Did you know that Lego makes a plastic vacuum cleaner shaped like
a parrot to pick up stray Legos??


SUNDAY


Ethan  and I  drove around  Silicon Valley  today looking  at various
company parking lots to see whose workers are working on a Sunday.  He
says that's the surest way to tell which company to invest in. "If the
techies aren't grinding, the stock ain't climbing."

Karla  doesn't  like  my  being  friends  with  Ethan.  She  says it's
corrupting, but I told her not to worry, that I spent all of my  youth
in front of a  computer and that  I'll never catch  up to all  the non
nerds who spent their early twenties having a life and being jaded.

Karla says that nerds-gone-bad are  the scariest of all, because  they
turn into "Marvins" and cause problems of planetary dimensions. Marvin
was that  character from  Bugs Bunny  cartoons who  wanted to  blow up
Earth because it obscured his view of Venus.

* * *

Oh - earlier today, driving up Arastradero from Starbucks, the  sunset
was literally almost killer.

It was all we could do not  to crash the car looking at the  pinks and
oranges. And the view from Mom and Dad's house on La Cresta Drive  was
staggering: from the San Mateo  bridge to the north, practically  down
to Gilroy in the south. The Contra Costa Mountains were seemingly  lit
from the inside, like beef-colored  patio lanterns, and we even  saw a
glint  from the  observatory atop  Mount Hamilton.  And the  dirigible
hangar  at  Moffatt  Naval   Airfield  looked  as  if   the  Stay-Puft
marshmallow giant was lying down to die. It was so grand.

We sat there on the sagging cedar balcony to watch the floor show. The
balcony sags because the sugary brown soil underneath all these  older
ranch houses is settling; floors  bump; doors don't quite close  true.
We threw chew  toys to Misty,  Mom's golden retriever  that she bought
two years ago second-hand. Misty was supposed to be a seeing-eye  dog,
but she failed her exam because she's too affectionate. It's a flaw we
don't mind. It was just a nice moment. I felt like I was home.

* * *

Karla also keeps a diary, but  her entries are so brief. For  example,
she showed me a  sample entry for the  entire trip to California,  all
she wrote was: Drove down to California. Dan drew a robot on my  place
mat at lunch in south Oregon and I put it in my purse. That was it. No
mention of anything we talked about. I call it Reduced Instruction Set
Computation diaries.


MONDAY


Karla and I  took an R&R  break and drove  40 miles up  to one of  the
Simpsons bars in the City - the Toronado, where they play The Simpsons
every Thursday night. Except I realized it was Monday, so no Simpsons.
I can never get  the dates right anymore.  But soon enough they'll  be
syndicated on  the junky  stations every  night until  the end  of the
universe, so I suppose I'll survive.

* * *

We took the wrong off-ramp (a  deadly mistake in San Francisco -  they
STILL  haven't rebuilt  after the  1989 quake;  the 101/280  connector
links are  so unbelievably  big and  empty and  unfinished) and we got
lost. We ended up driving through Noe Valley by accident - so  pretty.
Such a VISION,  this city is.  I suppose the  City is putting  all its
highway-building energy  into  building  the  mention-it-one-more-time
and-I'll-scream information superhighway.

* * *

Speaking of the information superhighway, we have all given each other
official  permission  to administer  a  beating to  whoever  uses that
accursed term. We're so sick of it!

* * *

On the mountain coming  in from the airport  they have what has  to be
the world's ugliest sign  saying, SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO,  THE INDUSTRIAL
CITY, in huge white letters up  on the mountainside. You just feel  so
sorry for the mind set that would treat a beautiful mountainside  like
it was a button at a trade convention.

"If they changed it to  POSTINDUSTRIAL city, it might be  meaningful,"
said Karla.

* * *

Anyway,  we  couldn't find  the  bar and  wound  up in  a  coffeehouse
somewhere in the Mission District.

San Francisco is a weird tesseract of hipness: lawyers don tattoos and
listen to the  Germs' first album.  Everyone here is  so young -  it's
like Microsoft that  way - a  whole realm composed  of people our  own
age. Because of that, there's  an abundance of dive bars,  hipsterious
coffeehouses, and cheap-eats places. It's  a big town that feels  like
neighborhoods: a municipal expression of Local Area Networks.

And I must admit I'm impressed by the level of techiness - people here
are fully jacked in. Should  some future historian ever feel  the need
to duplicate an SF coffee bar circa The Dawn of Multimedia, they  will
require the following:

	• thrashed PowerBooks  covered with snowboarding  and Chiquita
	banana stickers

	• a bad early 1980s stereo (the owner's old system,  after  he
	upgraded his own personal system)

	• used mismatched furniture

	•  bad  oil  paintings  (vaginal  imagery/exploding eyes/nails
	protruding from raw paint)

	• a cork bulletin board (paper messages!)

	• sullen, most likely stoned, undergrads

	• multi-pierced bodies

	• a few  weird, leftover 1980s  people in black  leather coats
	and black-dyed hair

	• nightclub flyers

Parking  in San  Francisco is  a nightmare.  There are  no spots.  We
decided that the next time we  came we'd bring our own spots  with us.
We  decided to  invent portable,  roll-up spots,  like those  portable
holes they use in  cartoons. Or maybe a  can of spray-on parking  spot
remover to get  rid of other  cars. It's crazy  there, that way.  Just
crazy. In  the end  we said  a prayer  to Rita,  the pagan  goddess of
parking spots and meters. We shot out beams of parking karma into  the
hills ahead of  us. We were  rewarded with fourteen  luxurious feet of
car space. Rita, you kooky goddess you!

* * *

Learned  a new  word today:  "interiority" -  it means,  being inside
somebody 's head.

* * *

Michael has a new obsession: he sits on the patio beside the pool  and
watches   the   automated  Polaris   pool-sweeper   scrape  decomposed
eucalyptus leaves off the pool's  bottom. The pool sweeper looks  like
R2D2 as it hobbles about its duties, and I think they're becoming best
friends.

* * *

Oh - we have this  Euroneighbor named Anatole. He started  dropping by
when he found out  there were other nerds  in the neighborhood. As  he
used to work at Apple, we don't mind his presence as much as we  would
otherwise. He's a repository of Apple lore (gossip ahoy!). He's a real
turtlenecker - one of those French  guys who'd be smoking in the  rain
up at Microsoft.

He  said  that it  was  at Clinton's  congressional  speech when  John
Sculley sat next to Hillary Clinton that everybody realized Apple  was
way out of  control. Personally, I  thought it was  glamorous. Then he
hit us with a bombshell, which was that Apple never had a  contingency
plan in the event  that they lost the  Look & Feel suit.  They totally
believed they were going to win. Maybe the PowerPC will save them.  We
warned Anatole not to discuss Look & Feel with Bug, but he said they'd
already  discussed it  and that  Bug had  seemed bored  by it.  Bug's
forgetting his roots! California's turned him mellow.

Also, Anatole says nobody's simply  at Apple; they're still at  Apple.
It would appear  that none of  what we hear  matches the One-Point-Oh,
Gods-in-the-Clouds mental pictures  we have of  the company. But  like
most gossip, it merely makes us want  to be closer to the core of  the
gossip itself. We're all drooling for a chance to visit Apple,  except
a chance never seems to appear. Anatole is useless in this regard.  We
think he burned some bridges before he left - expense report fudging?

* * *

And  of course  Anatole is  a genius.  In the  Silicon Valley  the IQ
baseline (as  at Microsoft)  starts at  130, and  bell-curves quickly,
plateauing near 155, and only then does it decrease. But the Valley is
a  whole  multi-city complex  of  persnickety eggheads,  not  just one
single Orwellian technoplex, like Microsoft. As I said - it's sci-fi.

* * *

Bug accidentally  used the  term information  superhighway, and  so we
were able to administer a beating.


TUESDAY


Our money situation is tight.

Trying  to  find  money  through  venture  capital  is  a  long, evil,
conflictual process full of hype and hope. If I have learned  anything
here, it's that snagging loot is the key struggle and obsession of any
start-up. Fortunately for us, Michael  and Ethan have agreed that  the
best thing to do  is to be an  R&D company (research and  development)
and get another company to  "publish" our products. That way  we don't
have to  hire our  own sales  and marketing  people, or  shell out the
enormous amounts of money it  takes to market software. We  still need
funding to build the product, though.

Susan's freaking  out worse  than anybody.  Maybe that's  why she  and
Ethan disagree on everything. He always says everything's  "fabulous,"
while she fumes.

Today Ethan called Silicon Valley "the 'moniest' place on earth,"  and
he's probably right. Everything in this Valley revolves around $$$ . .
. EVERYTHING.  Money was  something you  never had  to think  about at
Microsoft.  I mean,  not that  Microsofters don't  check out  WinQuote
daily, but  here, as  I have  said, there's  this endless, boring, mad
scramble for loot.

* * *

For financial reasons, we have to  work at Mom and Dad's place,  until
we're flush with VC capital.

We work at the south end of the house in a big room that was  supposed
to  be  the  rumpus  room, back  during  the  era  when society  still
manufactured Brady children. It has been completely converted into the
tasteful carnage of our "Habitrail 2." We call it Habitrail 2  because
it's a big maze, because its ventilation hinges on the anaerobic,  and
because  paper  is  everywhere, just  like  gerbils  nesting inside  a
Kleenex box. Michael has installed his own two pet gerbils, "Look" and
"Feel," inside  his astoundingly  large yellow  plastic Habitrail kit,
which encircles the office . . . decades' worth of collecting. We  get
to hear Look and Feel scampering about endlessly while we work.  Karla
likes the Habitrail  setup because it  reminds her of  the old cartoon
with  the  chipmunks trapped  inside  the vegetable  factory.  She and
Michael are continually adding on to it. It's their common bond.

At  a  glance  around  the  Habitrail  2,  there  are  Post-it  notes,
photocopies,  junk   mail,  newspapers,   corporate  reports,   specs,
printouts,   and   litter,   plus   thumbed-to-exhaustion   copies  of
Microprocessor  Report,  California   Technology  Stock  Letter,   Red
Herring,  Soft•Letter,  Multimedia Business  Report,  People, and  The
National Enquirer. You get the  feeling that if you only  reached into
this paperstorm you could withdraw  a strand of six pulsating  rubbery
pink gerbil babies. Paperless office . . . ha!

There  is  a billiard  table  covered with  SGIs,  MultiSync monitors,
coding manuals, printouts,  take-out food  boxes, coils,  cables, dry
erase pens,  and calculators.  Over by  "The Dad  Bar" (diamond tufted
leatherette;  "Tee  Many  Martoonies"-style  knickknacks)  there   are
compiler manuals,  more monitors,  and an  EPROM chip  toaster stacked
alongside cases of  Price-Costco diet Cokes  and fruit leather  whips.
(My  workspace,  I am  pleased  to say,  is  spotless, and  my  barely
scratched Microsoft  Ship-It Award  rests proudly  underneath a Pan-Am
747 plastic model.)

Needless  to say,  Far Side  cartoons are  taped everywhere.  I think
techies  are an  intricate part  of the  life cycle  of The  Far Side
cartoon, the way  viruses can only  propagate in the  presence of host
organisms. Susan says, "We are only devices for the replication of Far
Side cartoons." Now that's one way of looking at humanity.

And  of  course  there  are two  long  couches  for  those flights  to
Australia.

Mom is happy to have our pittance of rent money, and my commuting time
is ninety seconds, as I live with Karla in one of the guest bedrooms.

The main  drawback about  the Habitrail  2 is  the ventilation,  which
could be better. Todd calls  it "hamper fresh." We'd keep  the sliding
door leading into the backyard open more often, but Ethan doesn't want
dust and insects infecting our technology. Or Mom's golden  retriever,
Misty.

Habitrail 2 also features:

	• 4-fingered cartoon gloves

	• ubiquitous Nerfiana

	• 24 Donna Karan coffee mugs (long story)

	• a decaf coffee tin labeled "666"

	• GoBot transformer-type toys

	• Glass beads at the door, like the ones Rhoda Morgenstern had

	• herbal tea packets and tea-making apparatus

	• several Game Boys

	• three 4'-x-8' dry-erase wall boards

	• a diet 7-UP pyramid

	• an extensive manga collection

	• T2 spin-off merchandise

	• one Flipper thermos

We inhabit our workstations  daily for a minimum  of 12 hours. We  use
brown  and  white  plastic  folding patio  chairs,  so  our  backs are
completely  shot. So  much for  ergonomics. (Thank  God for  shiatsu.)
There's the occasional Homer  Simpson "doh!" punctuating the  air when
someone's cursor bleeps, or  the occasionally muttered piss  and crap.
No one can agree on music, so we play none. Or use Walkmans.

* * *

We're doing a Windows version and a Mac version of Oop!. And Michael's
drafted the  coolest ERS  for the  graphics, AI,  interface, and maybe
sound. Just killer  stuff, all patentable.  Michael needs us  to bring
his vision to life. Our jobs are:

Michael: Chief Architect.  He has the  overall vision. He  also writes
the code engine that drives  the graphics and modeling algorithms.  He
rules the engineers - us.

Ethan: President, CEO, and Director of Operations. His job is to  find
investors to  fund us,  find a  company to  publish and distribute our
products, and to  run the business  day-to-day. Most companies  have a
CFO,  but  we  can't  afford  one,  so  Ethan  does  the  bill-paying,
accounting, taxes, equipment-buying, and all that stuff.

Bug: In charge of database  and file IO (Input/Output). It's  how Oop!
stores  information  to   and  from  the   hard  drive;  it's   really
complicated, and the kind of thing Bug loves.

Todd: He is "Ditherman" -  working on the graphics engine  and printer
driver. All of the graphics need to be converted into an output format
in order to be printed by a printer.

Me and  Karla: We're  working on  the cross-platform  class library so
Oop! will run on both Mac and Windows. I'm Windows lead, she's the Mac
lead.

Susan: She's the User-Interface  Designer; in charge  of the look-and
feel, the  graphics, all  that. She's  the U-I  police keeping  me and
Karla's code in sync.

* * *

Mom has a  collection of rocks.  This sounds weird,  and it really  is
weird. She has this  small pile of rocks  on the patio that  just sits
there. I ask Mom why she likes them, and she says, "I don't know, they
just seem special."

So is this  something that might  lead to her  requiring medication? I
mean, they're not even nice-looking rocks. I keep looking at them  and
try and see what she sees, and I can't.

* * *

As  stated,  Karla and  I  are working  on  the same  things,  just in
different formats. She's Mac, I'm Windows.

"Entirely appropriate," says Karla, "because Windows is more male, and
Mac is more female."

I felt defensive. "How so?"

"Well, Windows is nonintuitive . . . counterintuitive, sometimes.  But
it's so MALE to just go buy  a Windows PC system and waste a  bunch of
time learning bogus commands and reading a thousand dialog boxes every
time you want to change  a point size or whatever  . . . MEN are  just
used to sitting there, taking orders, executing needless commands, and
feeling like they got such a good deal because they saved $200.  WOMEN
crave efficiency, elegance . . .  the Mac lets them move within  their
digital universe exactly as  they'd like, without cluttering  up their
human memory banks. I think the reason why so many women used to  feel
like they didn't "understand computers" was  because PCs are so brain
dead  . .  . the  Macintosh is  responsible for  upping not  only the
earning  potential  of  women  but  also  the  feeling  of   mastering
technology, which they get told  is impossible for them. I  was always
told that."

* * *

Remember  at  the very  end  of Soylent  Green  where Charlton  Heston
screams, "Soylent Green is people!!!!"?  Well, I had that same sort of
feeling today when Anatole began telling us about working life down at
Apple . . . "Apple is Microsoft!!!"  He told us that the moods on  the
two "campuses" are almost exactly the same, and that the two corporate
cultures, although they purport to be the opposite of each other,  are
actually about as different as Tide and Oxydol.

Anatole was hanging around  all day today and  on the drywall he  made
this  big  list  of similarities  and  differences  between Apple  and
Microsoft. Herewith:

Microsoft

waiting for stock to vest

Apple

trying to get laid off

Microsoft

"the Campus"

Apple

"the Campus"

Microsoft

make money

Apple

"1.0" sensibility

Microsoft

Microsoft Way

Apple

Infinite Loop

Microsoft

Bill

Apple

(no longer any equivalent)

Microsoft

Apple envy

Apple

Microsoft envy

Microsoft

boring buildings/good art

Apple

good buildings/art a sideline only

Microsoft

better cafeterias

Apple

better nerd toys

Microsoft

soccer field

Apple

sculpture garden

Microsoft

I-520

Apple

I-280

Microsoft

Intel

Apple

Motorola

Microsoft

average age: 31.2

Apple

average age: 31.9

Microsoft

gray Lexus

Apple

white Ford Explorer

Microsoft

not wild at creating new things but good on follow-through

Apple

good at creating new things but not wild on follow-through

Microsoft

no one ever gets fired

Apple

no one ever got fired. . . until  the layoffs started

Microsoft

wacky titles on business cards

Apple

wacky titles on business cards

Microsoft

eerie, Lagan's Run-like atmosphere

Apple

eerie, Logan 's Run-like atmosphere

Microsoft

uneasy IBM symbiosis

Apple

uneasy IBM fusion

Microsoft

13,200 employees

Apple

14,500 employees

Microsoft

people hired in 1991-92 being shuffled around

Apple

people hired from colleges in 1988-89 being turfed

Microsoft

stock set to split

Apple

stock price at  cash liquidation value  of company; now's  the time to
buy!

* * *

Still no tour of the Apple facilities, I note.

* * *

Today was one of those days where it was warm if you were standing  in
the sunlight, but the moment you left it, you froze.

* * *

I saw doves and  I thought they were  rocks, but they were  asleep. My
breath made them stir, and the rocks took flight, the earth  exploding
. . . and my only thought was that I wanted you to see them, too

The man  from Whirlpool  came to  fix the  washer today,  and he found
Black  Widow  spiders nesting  underneath  its broken  engine,  and he
showed me the web, and I found myself thinking of catching you, biting
you, spinning you within my limbs and setting you free

Don't tell me this isn't true.

Tell me you feel this fire.

Oxydol

Revell

makeover

throw cushion

binder paper

lipstick


WEDNESDAY


Down at the  library, Mom made  up a list  of "deer-proof" plants  for
Ethan. She got it from Sunset's Western Garden Book. Mom loves  Ethan.
He's a go-getter.

* * *

During lunch, as Ethan, Todd, and I drove in Karla's Carp through  the
Carl's Jr. drive-thru, Ethan gave us an inspirational chat. "Guys, the
last thing we  want," he said,  "is to seem  to be hurting  for money.
Venture capitalists like to see  stability first. Only then will  they
come in with cash."

Todd  expressed  some disappointment  that  Oop! was,  in  fact, quite
desperate for money, in spite of Michael's and Susan's infusions.

He replied, "Todd:  fate hands you  opportunities for a  while, and if
you don't  take them,  Fate says  to itself,  'Oh I  see - this person
doesn't like opportunities,' and stops giving them to you."

I notice that I had to pay for the Western Burgers and fries and  diet
Cokes.

"Think of money this way," he went on, "take an initial sum and  teach
it to multiply itself, the way you copy-and-paste text to multiply it.
Never think of money in terms of numbers. Only think of money in terms
of other things.  For example:  two weeks  of bug-checking  equals a Y
class ticket  to Boston.  That sort  of thing.  If you  think of money
simply as numbers then you're doomed."

Ethan then  fed a  used Band-Aid  from his  index finger  to a seagull
squatted on a landscaped berm beside the road, and Todd and I lost our
appetites.  We  gave  Ethan  our meals  and  dropped  him  off at  his
dermatologist's office.

* * *

Melrose Place night. One hour  of work-free bliss and catcalls  as the
six of us monopolize the living room TV. It's better than the  Academy
Awards - and every week, too. Added bonus: 90210 as an hors d'oeuvre.

Susan  noted  tonight  that the  computers  in  Billy's office  aren't
connected to, or plugged into,  anything. But this just made  the show
even better.

Todd chugged Snapples. He calls them, "Workahol."

We all made  fun of the  commercial for Mentos  mints, saying "Mentos"
all night with a goofy European accent. "Mentos."  It's so dumb.

* * *

This is embarrassing to admit, but I still don't really know what  Dad
does for Michael.  I am amazed  that I can  be this clueless,  but all
either of them will  say is that he's  working on our final  corporate
space in downtown Palo Alto. But can we afford this? I thought we were
hurting for money. I am going  to try and sleuth out what  he's doing.
Whatever it is, it's totally  sucked up all of his  model train-making
energy. He doesn't go near the garage anymore.

* * *

I  told  Karla what  Ethan  said at  lunch,  about teaching  money  to
multiply itself. She said Ethan's talking "bollocks." I asked her what
that word meant, and she said she wasn't sure - it was a term from the
punk rock era. "Something to  do with anarchy and safety  pins." We're
going to e-mail someone in England and find out what it means.


THURSDAY


Today  we were  talking about  the name  of our  corporation. It's  so
boring - E&M Software. Obviously, that's Ethan and Michael, and it  is
their company,  but Michael  said if  we had  a better  idea we  could
change it. Since we haven't shipped anything yet anyway.

Over the day, we wrote our suggestions on our code-blemished dry-erase
wall.  This  is a  really  common thing  down  here: dry-erase  boards
covered in name suggestions. Here are some of our own:

"Cybo"

"GeekO"

"1410  Cá"  (Michael  suggested  this  -  it's  the  melting  point of
silicon.)

"@" (My suggestion. Susan said  the name sounded too skateboardy,  and
Ethan said that somebody's probably already used it, anyway.)

"Clean  Room" (Abe's  e-mail suggestion  and my  favorite -  Lego was
always hell to clean up.)

"Dead Pixel"

"Xen" (Pronounced  "Zen." Half  the companies  down here  have an X in
their name.)

"InfiniToy"

"Bottomless Box"

"Dangerously Overcrowded Electrical Outlet"

"Box of Oily Rags"

"Dream Enabling  Technologies" (Ethan  suggested this  to a  chorus of
gagging noises.)

"WaferMap" (Suggested by Susan, but  then immediately nixed by her  as
"Too  1981,"  but Michael  liked  the idea  of  InterCapping -  mixing
capital letters in with lowercase letters.)

Something  "European"  (Karla:  "Americans  can  only  digest  one new
extremely weird European word every two years. It's a fact. My  proof:
Nadia Comaneci,  Haagen-Dazs, and  Fahrvergnügen. We  can become  this
year's  scary  European  word.") Everybody  agreed  in  principle, but
nobody knows  any other  languages besides  computer languages, except
Anatole, but he's like the wacky upstairs neighbor from a sitcom,  and
not a part of our core team, so the idea died.

"Cher" or "Sting" (Ethan suggested something one-syllable. So we asked
which syllable  in particular,  and he  blanked. "Ummm  . . ." doesn't
count.)

":•)" (Mom wrote this one, saying, "They're called emoticons - I  read
about them in  USA Today. They're  like sideways happy  faces." We all
ganged up on her: "We hate those things!" Everyone except for Bug who,
as it turns out, loves them. And then Susan 'fessed up that she  liked
some of them.  And then Todd.  And then Karla.  I guess emoticons  are
like Baywatch - everyone says they don't watch it, but they really do.

Mom, the librarian, said: "Just think of how confused librarians would
be!  I mean,  what would  they file  it under?  Diacritical marks  are
extraordinarily  confusing." I  was pleased  to note  this anarchical
streak in her. "We could call the emoticon, ;•), 'WINK' "

Ethan  asked  what  keyboard character  the  "nose"  was, and  Michael
quickly replied, "It's a dingbat-OPTION-8 on a Mac keyboard using Word
5.1. PCs use the asterisk."

"Interiority" (The winner,  and my suggestion.  Prize: a Nerf  Galling
gun.) So now we're making Oop! an Interiority product.

* * *

Housing  update:  Bug  and  Susan  now  live  30  miles  north  in San
Francisco. They drive the 280 against the rush-hour traffic, it's  not
too bad.

Susan lives in  the sumptuous 2-bedroom  apartment next door  to Bug's
seedy bachelor "bedsitter." We gloated at their decision to live  next
to each other, but Susan told us to stop smirking like dungeonmasters.
"Don't think  I don't  know what  I'm in  for. I  warned Bug that if I
smell even  one of  his crappy  little Dinty  Moore meals  through the
walls, I'm going to gel him evicted." Susan just doesn't want to admit
she doesn't want to  be alone. She acts  all tough and wolfwoman,  but
it's all bark.  Michael lives in  the other spare  room down the  hall
from me and Karla.  More to the point,  he announced he's moving  to a
personalized 1-800 number. That's  where he really lives  - 1-800land.
Todd's renting a room in a geek house - Stanford grad students -  near
the Shoreline exit  off the 101  in order to  be closer to  the Gold's
Gym. He lives at the gym.  It's lots of EZ-to-access free sex.  Abe is
still in Redmond. We miss him, but  then we do talk to him daily  over
e-mail. Probably more than we did when we were there.

* * *

I yawned too  loudly this afternoon,  and Susan said,  "Don't you ever
sleep, Dan?"

Karla,  hearing this,  said, "She's  right, Dan  - you're  insomniacal
again. So, what's the deal?"

I admitted the truth - that I was having bad dreams. Not insomnia, but
bad dreams, which is  different. I said it's  just a patch, and  it'll
probably pass. I also told them that for the time being, when I go  to
sleep, I  try not  to have  any dreams  at all  - "as  a precautionary
measure."

"You mean you can turn your dreams off, just like that?" Susan asked.

I said, "A little bit. A nightmare doesn't count as sleep, so I  don't
get any real rest. I wake up even more tired."

Michael overheard this and said, "But that's so inefficient!"

He told me of how his real life and his dream life are becoming pretty
much the same.  "I must come  up with a  new word for  what it is that
goes on inside my head at night. The delineation between awakeness and
asleepness  is  now  marginal.  It's  more  like  I'm  running   'test
scenarios'  in  my head  at  night -  like  RAND Corporation  military
simulations."

Count on Michael to find a way to be productive, even while sleeping.

* * *

E-mail from Abe:

Fast food for thought: Do you know that if you feed catfish (America’s
favorite bottom feeder)  nothing but left-over  grain mash they  endup
becoming white-meat filet units with no discernible flavor (marine  or
otherwise) of their own? Thus they beocome whatever coating you  apply
to them  (i.e. Cajun,  xesty Cheddar,  tangy ranch)  They're the  most
postmodern  creatures on  earth .  . .  metaphores for  characters on
Merlrose Place . . . or for coders with NO LIFE.

* * *

Found out  what bollocks  means, from  a Net  user at  a university in
Bristol. Those Brits are a cheeky lot! It means, "balls"!


FRIDAY


Abe e-mailed from Redmond. He finally fessed up to something that I've
known a long time - that nobody really knows where the Silicon  Valley
is -  or  what  it is.  Abe grew  up in  Rochester and never came west
until Microsoft.

My reply:

Silicon Valley

Where/what is it?

Its a backward J-shaped strand of cities, starting at the south of San
Francisco  and looping  down the  bay, east  of San  Jose: San  Mateo,
Foster City, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto,
Los Ritos,  Mountain View,  Cupertino, Sunnyvale,  Saratoga, Campbell,
Los Gatos, Santa Clara, San Jose,  Milpitas and Fremont. I used a  map
for this.

They don’t actually MANUFACTURE much by way of silicon here anymore  .
. . the silicon chip  factories are mostly a thing  of the past . .  .
it's no longer  a cost effective  thing to do.  Chips are printed  and
etched here  but the  DIRTY stuff  is offshored.  *CLEAN* Intellectual
properties are created here now, insted.

Palo Alto:

Population: 55,900

Size: 25.9 square miles

I used to live here when I went to Stanford, so I know it pretty well.

Palo  Alto  is  half bedroom  suburb,  half  futuristic 1970s  science
fiction movies starring Charlton Heston. It has lush trees, relatively
fear-free schools, and only a few malls. Its real estate was the first
in America to hyperinflate, back in the 1970s.

The *BIG* thing about Palo Alto is that, as a city, it designs tons of
incredibly powerful and scary shit inside its science parks, which are
EUERYWHERE.

The science parks  are these clean  boxes set atop  eerie, beautifully
maintained lawns that have never felt the crush of a football. There's
this  senssation  that  something  weirds  going  on,  but  you  can't
articulate it, because the weirdness is 9too deep.

Once  you leave  the Camino  Real, the  main strip,  the city  becomes
deadly quiet, exept for the  occasionnal BMW, Honda or truck  carrying
50-foot lengths of PUC tubing encasement for optical fibers.

* * *

I broke down and asked Dad today, "Dad, what exactly are you doing for
Michael?"  and  he said,  "Well,  Daniel, I  haven't  really signed  a
nondisclosure form on the subject, but I did promise Michael I'd  keep
it top secret until it was time to reveal."

Gee, thanks.

* * *

Susan and  Ethan are  actually united  on an  issue -  a local crusade
against leaf blowers - the gas-fired  kind. The noise from them is,  I
have to agree, something shocking. They phoned Palo Alto City Hall and
got some  poor civil  servant on  the line  and harangued  them. Ethan
screamed,  "After  a certain  point,  decibels turn  into  BTUs. We're
melting here." Susan phoned up and screamed, "Is Palo Alto Spanish for
leaf blower? Ban these things NOW!"

It's fun  to watch  your friends  get random.  Especially when they're
ragging on something that's a direct metaphor for their personalities.

* * *

I have noticed  that on TV,  all of these  "moments" are sponsored  by
corporations, as in, "This touchdown was brought to you by the brewers
of Bud Lite, " or "This nostalgia flashback was brought to you by  the
proud makers of Kraft's family of fine foods. "

I  told Karla,  "I'm no  sci-fi buff,  but doesn't  this seem  like a
dangerous way to be messing with the structure of time - allowing  the
corporate realm to invade the private?

Karla told me  about how the  city of Atlanta  was tampering with  the
idea of naming streets after corporations in return for paying for the
maintenance  of  infrastructure:  "Folgers  Avenue;  Royal   Jordanian
Airlines Boulevard; Tru-Valu Road."

"Well,"  I said,  "streets have  to get  names somehow.  The surnames
Smith, Brown, and Johnson probably looked pretty weird when they first
started, too."

Karla  said, "I  think that  in the  future, clocks  won't say  three
o'clock anymore. They'll  just get right  to the point  and call three
o'clock, 'Pepsi.'"

* * *

During tonight's massage lesson, Karla said, "Remember living in  that
enormous furniture-free rancher up in Redmond with all the rain clouds
and everything? It feels like a long time ago. I sort of miss it."

I said nothing.  I don't miss  it. I prefer  the chaos of  here to the
predictability of . . . there.

My body felt like overcooked spaghetti after tonight's session. Yeah!

* * *

I tried Ethan's theory about copy-and-pasting. I was mesmerized by the
results - think and grow rich:

money money  money money  money money  money money  money money  money
money money  money money  money money  money money  money money  money
money money  money money  money money  money money  money money  money
money money money money money money money money money money money

[Formatter's note: The book has two  pages - 132 - 133 -  with nothing
but the word "money" here.]

* * *

I stared at an  entire screen full of  these words and they  dissolved
and lost their meaning, the way words do when you repeat them over and
over - the way  anything loses meaning when  context is removed -  the
way  we  can quickly  enter  the world  of  the immaterial  using  the
simplest of devices, like multiplication.


SATURDAY


Poor or not, life  has become coding madness  all over again -  except
this time we're killing ourselves for ourselves, instead of some  huge
company  to  whom  we  might  as  well  be  interchangeable  bloodless
PlaySkool figurine units.  We began coding  the day after  we arrived.
Michael's code  is elegant  stuff -  really fun  to tweak. And there's
certainly lots of it.  No shortage of work  here. And there's so  much
planning, and we all have our milestone charts pasted up on our  booth
walls.

And  once again,  work is  providing us  with a  comforting sense  of
normalcy - living and working inside of coding's predictably segmented
time/space. Simply grinding away at something makes life feel  stable,
even though the external particulars of life (like our pay checks, our
office, and so forth) are, at best, random.

Bug has surprised  us with his  untapped talent for  generating gaming
ideas  and  coding shortcuts.  Ethan  called him  a  Burgess Shale  of
untried ideas. He's blossoming - at 32!

* * *

Michael has an  office more or  less to himself,  behind the bar,  and
walled off  with sound  baffles. He  shares it  with Ethan, who visits
only twice a day  for "face-time": first to  talk with Michael in  the
morning - and then once in  the afternoon for a wrap-up. The  downside
of  a  closed  door  office  is  the  overaccumulation  of  dead  skin
particles. With Ethan's dandruff, the floor looks like Vail, Colorado.

Not infrequently, Michael locks himself inside and geeks out on  code.
We  call this  bungee-coding. He  always does  his best  work when  he
really geeks out. Nobody's offended - it's the way he is.

* * *

I asked Mom what  she knew of Dad's  work with Michael. She  said it's
Top Secret, but she gave me a  clue: his fingers are all red and  sore
at night.

"Don't worry about  it, Dan, he's  happy, and so  as long as  the Feds
aren't called in, let him be." So much for curiosity.

* * *

I  tried looking  at Mom's  rock collection  today. They  continue to
perplex me. Beauty is absolutely in the eye of the beholder.

* * *

Todd broke the 400-pound mark on the bench press today and  celebrated
by making protein drinks for everybody, but they had a rotting protein
odor. We pretended to enjoy them, then formed tag teams running to the
laundry sink to dump them.

* * *

I looked at Dad's hands and they are indeed all chafed and red.

* * *

Susan's dating some guy  from Intel, but I  don't think it's going  to
work, because Intel's corporate culture is so weird.

"They're like Borgs,"  says Susan. "They  have one mind.  They're like
this sci-fi movie I once saw  where if one child in a  village learned
something, all the  other children learned  it simultaneously. It's  a
hive mind. You get the feeling there's a sub-audible tape playing that
says, resistance is futile . . .  you WILL assimilate . . ." And  then
Susan  got thoughtful  and said,  "The more  I think  about it,  it's
actually  like  Microsoft.  In  fact  all  huge  tech  firms  are like
Microsoft."

* * *

Went out  for a  drink with  Ethan at  the Empire  Tap Room on Emerson
Street. He said, "There is no  center to the Valley in any  real sense
of the word. There is no one watching; it's pretty, but it's a vacuum;
a kingdom of a thousand princes but no kings."

I know  what he's  talking about  - the  deficit of  visionaries - the
centerless boredom of Valley life. I mean, if I really think about it,
Valley people work and sleep -  work and sleep and work and  sleep and
somewhere along the line the dream border is blurred. It's as if there
is a collective decision to disfavor a Godhead. It's not despair; they
just want the Real Thing. The Beast.

And the penny pinching! The nondisclosure forms! The extreme wealth of
the high-IQ'ed genetic  gift baskets who  won on the  Punnet Square of
life! I  suppose this  is the  birthplace of  the new,  postindustrial
economy here amid the ghosts  of apricot orchards, spinach farms,  and
horse ranches - here inside  the science parks, industrial areas,  and
cool,  leafy  suburbs. Here,  where  sexy new  technologies  are being
blueprinted, CAD'ed,  engineered,  imagineered,  and  modeled  -  post
machines making countless millions of people obsolete overnight.

Palo  Alto  is so  invisible  from the  outside,  but invisibility  is
invariably where one locates the ACTION.

* * *

Worked until 3:30 a.m.  Breezy night. Went for  a walk down La  Cresta
Drive. So  quiet. I  got to  feeling meditative.  I felt  as though my
inner self was much closer to the surface than it usually gets. It's a
nice feeling. It takes quiet to get there.

* * *

The liquid engineers left the pool  heater on too long, and at  night,
chorine vapors rose above the plant life of the planet, and I imagined
my flesh, being  inside the pool,  being warm, and  protected, feeling
gravity, but able  to mock it  as I floated.  Would you float  with me
now, if I asked you, would you jump in the pool and not even bother to
strip?  Could I strip you down, remove your clothing and we would fall
inside the water together?

It scares me.

I don't want to lose you.  I can't imagine ever feeling this  strongly
about anything or anybody ever again.

This was unexpected, my soul's connection to you.

You stole my loneliness

No one knows that I was wishing for you, a thief, to enter my house of
autonomy, that I had locked my doors but my Windows were open, hoping,
but not believing, you would enter.


SUNDAY


Michael made us attend:  "Interactive Multimedia, Product Design,  and
the Year  2000."  It  was at  a Hyatt  or something  down in San Jose.
Michael wanted us to have "a good overview of the industry." We barely
made it through the event.

The day after the seminar, I might add, Michael bought us all San Jose
Sharks inflatable  toys as  penance. (The  Sharks are  *huge* here.  I
think I'm already beginning  to bond with them.)  If my ship comes  in
this year, I'm  going to buy  season's tickets for  next year's games.
Can't wait for the season.

I e-mailed my notes to Abe.

"29 Steps: My Trip to the Interactive Multimedia Seminar"

by Daniel Underwood

1) Some people believe that  the suspension of disbelief is  destroyed
by interactivity.

2) The people who attend "Multimedia Seminars" aren't the same  people
who  design  games.  Their shirts  are  ironed,  they carry  unscuffed
leather attache cases, they're  infinitely earnest and they  look like
they work for Prudential-Bache and Kidder-Peabody. These suits are all
bluffing now, but  soon enough they'll  "get it" and  they will become
"visionaries."

3) Narratives (stories) traditionally  come to a definite  end (unlike
life); that's why we  like movies and literature  - for that sense  of
closure - because they end.

4)  The   stakes  for   multimedia  may   actually  turn   out  to  be
embarrassingly small in  the short run  - like Milton  Bradley, Parker
Brothers, or Hasbro cranking out board game versions of The  Partridge
Family, The Banana Splits, and Zoom.

5) With interactivity, one tries to give "the illusion of  authorship"
to people who couldn't otherwise author.

Thought: maybe the need  to be told stories  is like the need  to have
sex. If you want to hear a story, you want to hear a story - you  want
to be passive and sit back around the fire and listen. You don't  want
to write the story yourself.

6) This sick thing just happened:  I had this moment when I  looked up
and everyone had been picking at the baby zits on their foreheads  and
everybody's forehead  was bleeding!  It was  like stigmata.  So gross.
Even Karla.

7) "There's an endemic inability in the software industry to  estimate
the amount of time required for a software project." (*TRUE*!)

8) Networked  games, like  where you  have one  person playing against
another, are hot because you  don't have to waste development  dollars
creating artificial intelligence. Players provide free AI.

9) The 8 Models of Interactivity (as far as I can see)

i) The Arcade model

Like Terminator: kill or be killed.

ii) The Coffee Table Book model

Enter   anywhere/leave   anywhere;   pointless   in   the   end;  zero
replayability factor.

iii) The Universe Creation model

I built you and I can crush you.

iv) The Binary Tree model

Limited  number  of  options;  reads  from  left  to  right;   tightly
controlled mini-dramas.

v) The Pick-a-Path model

Does  our hero  smooch with  Heather Locklear,  or not  - you  decide!
Expensive. Unproven entertainment value. Audiences don't pay money  to
work.

vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)

For  adolescents:  half-formed  personalities  roaming  (in  packs) in
search of identity.

vii) The Agatha Christie model

A puzzle is to be solved using levels, clues, chases, and exploration.

viii) Experience Simulation models

Flight simulators, sport games.

10) I wonder if we oversentimentalize the power of books.

11) Studios in  Hollywood are trying  to sucker in  writers by burying
multimedia rights into the boilerplate of contracts. It's intellectual
gill-netting. They say they've "always been doing it historically" . .
. assuming "since July" means historically.

12) The extraordinary cost of producing multimedia games theoretically
is supposed to exclude little companies from entering the market,  but
it's the little companies, I'm  noticing, that are coming up  with all
of the "hits." Hope for Oop!.

13) Karla and I met this cool-looking woman at lunch, Irene, and so we
had coffee with her before  the afternoon session began. It  turns out
she's a makeup artist for multimedia movies, and she wants to get into
production herself. Karla said, "Gee, you look really tired," and  she
said, "Oh - I've been working double shifts every day for two weeks."

So I asked her, "What kind of things are people filming for multimedia
games?"  and she  said, "It's  always the  same .  . .  Sir Lancelot,
Knights of the Round Table, thrones, chalices, damsels. Can't somebody
come up with something new? My Prince Arthur wig is getting all tired
looking."

I suggested she use a Marilyn Monroe wig.

14) Ideally in a game you  have hardheaded adventures, but at the  end
you get a glimpse of the supernatural.

15)  In  Los Angeles  everyone's  writing a  screenplay.  In New  York
everyone's writing a novel. In San Francisco, everyone's developing  a
multimedia product.

16) There's a different  mental construction in operation  when you're
playing  tennis  as  opposed  to  when  you're  reading  a  book. With
adrenaline-based competitive sports, the  thought mode is: "I  want to
kill   this   fucker."   It's   the   spirit   of   testing  yourself;
accomplishment. You  are gripped.  Suspension of  disbelief is  not an
issue.

17)  A  multimedia product  has  to deliver  $1  per hour's  worth  of
entertainment or you'll get slagged by word-of-mouth.

18) The  great Atari  gaming collapse  of 1982  (*sigh* I  remember it
well).

19) Games are about  providing control for nine  year olds . .  . "the
bigger and neater the entity I can control, the better."

20) Multimedia  has become  a "packaged  goods" industry  now. The box
copy is more important than the experience. But how do you write  cool
sexy box copy for a game like Tetris? You can't.

21) Cool term: "Manseconds": (Ergonomic unit of measurement applied to
keyboards, joysticks).

22) "Embedded  intelligence": (Intelligence  buried in  the nooks  and
crannies of code and storyboard design).

23) Last year at a Christmas party up in Seattle, there were all these
little kids - all  highly sugared and on  the brink of hysteria  - but
instead of  screaming, they  sat complacently  by the  TV playing SEGA
games. The games were like "Child Sedation Devices." It was spooky.

Susan was there. She  said, "Just think, in  50 years these same  kids
will be sitting at the  switches of our life-support systems  figuring
out a way  to play a  game by biofeedbacking  our failing EKGs.  Me, I
seem to remember  that when I  was younger, overly  sugared brats were
sent down into the basement to  fend for themselves, like Lord of  the
Flies."

24) How will  games progress as  30somethings turn into  50somethings?
("Cardigan: The Adventure")

25)  Flight  Simulation  games  are  actually  out-of-body  experience
emulators. There must be all of these people everywhere on earth right
now, waiting for  a miracle, waiting  to be pulled  out of themselves,
eager for  just the  smallest sign  that there  is something  finer or
larger or miraculous about our existence than we had supposed.

26) "The replayability problem" (Engineering a desire for repetition).

27) I think "van art" and Yes album covers were the biggest  influence
in game design.

28) I wonder if  I've missed the boat  on CD-ROM interactive -  if I'm
too old. The big companies are zeroing in on the 10 year olds. I think
you only ever  truly feel comfortable  with the level  of digitization
that was normal for you from the age of five to fifteen. I mean  sure,
I can make new games workable, but  it won't be a kick the way  Tetris
was. Or will it?

29) In the  end, multimedia interactive  won't resemble literature  so
much as sports.


MONDAY


Random moment earlier tonight: out of the blue Todd asked everyone  in
the Habitrail 2, "When they make processed cheese slices that are only
80 percent milk, what's the remaining 20 percent made from?"

Michael replied instantly, "Why, nonmilk additives, of course."

* * *

Today we learned  that Bug had  a piece of  shareware on his  computer
that installs wood paneling all  over your Macintosh desktop —  and he
didn't even tell  us! Grudgingly he  gave us a  download. "It's called
shareware, Bug, not hogware."

So now we all have digitized wood paneling on our desktops. The rumpus
room dream lives on inside our computer world.

* * *

Abe-mail:

I am going to RANT today. 2 things: 1)

The  US  Dollar is  the  working currency  not  only of  the  domestic
econimy, but of nearly every other country on earth (minus Europe  and
Japan).  That  must  count   for  somethin.  It's  obviously   grossly
undervalued. Why does the Federal Reserve keep the value so low?

(insert conspiracy theory here)

And  WHATS WITH  THESE MUTUAL  FUNDS AND  PENSION FUNDS?  I REFUSE  to
believe that money put into a  bank in 1956 is *still* money  in 1994.
1956 money may  still technically  be "there"  (wherever "there"  is) 
but it's undead money. It's sick. Evil. I can't believe that  *I*,  of
all people, am saying this, but there's something obscene about  money
that sits inside a bank and collects interest for decades. "lt;s  hard
at work," we're told . . .

OH RIGHT!

No, I think money is due  for some sort of collapse. People  are going
to realize that money  has a half-life -  a decade or so?  and then it
becomes perverse and random. Expecting a pension kids? Ha hah ha!

I'm feeling like Bug today.

2)

Easter egg

platform

surfing

frontier

garden

jukebox

net

dirty linen

pipeline

lassooo

highway

We  will have  soon fully  entered an  era where  we have  creatted a
computer metaphor for EVERY thing that exists in the real world.

Actually when you think about  it, *everything* can be a  metaphor for
"anything*.

To quote YOU, Daniel: "I mean, If you really think about it."

* * *

Abe has  a friend  in research  who's working  on "metaphor-backwards"
development of software  products. That is,  thinking of a  real-world
object with no cyber equivalent, and then figuring out what that cyber
equivalent should be. Abe's worried because at the moment he's working
on "gun."

* * *

Thought:  sometimes you  accidentally input  an extra  digit into  the
year: i.e., 19993 and you add 18,000 years on to now, and you  realize
that the year 19993 will one day exist and that time is a scary thing,
indeed.

* * *

Actually,  I've noticed  recently that  conversations always  seem to
reach the point where everybody says they don't have any time anymore.
How can time just . . .  disappear! Early this morning I told this  to
Karla as we were waking up and she said she's noticed this, too.

She also said that everybody's beginning to look the same these days 
"Everybody looks so  Gappy and identical."  She considered this  for a
second. "Everybody looks the same nowadays because nobody has the time
to differentiate themselves - or to even shop."

She paused  and looked  up at  the ceiling.  "Your mother doesn't like
me."

"How can you get so random out of nowhere? Of course she does."

"No. She doesn't. She thinks I'm a hick."

(Oh God - not  this stupid stuff again.)  "You two never talk,  so how
can you even tell?"

"So you admit she doesn't like me?"

"No!"

"We have to  do something together.  We have no  shared experiences or
memories."

"Wait a second-don't I count?"

"Maybe she sees me as stealing you."

"Mom?"

"Let's arrange a lunch. We've been here how long? And we've never even
had a lunch out together."

"Lunch? That's not much."

"Memories have to begin somewhere."

Now that  I think  about it,  Mom never  comes over  to our work area.
Ever. And the two of them never really do chat. It occurs to me that I
should have noticed, and I realize that I'm worried about it.

A crisis in my new-and-improved life.

* * *

We shot Nerf darts (Jarts) for a few hours this afternoon down in  the
backyard to  allow the  sunlight to  reset our  circadian rhythms.  We
drank Napa Valley  Cabernet like we  were Gary Grant  and made Klingon
jokes. We used  Dad's Soviet binoculars  to inspect the  enormous blue
"Jell-O  cube"  down  in  the Valley  below  -  a.k.a.  the Air  Force
Satellite Control Facility, at Onizuka Air Force Base in Sunnyvale.

A citrus  tree was  blossoming outside  the house;  the air was lemony
fresh and smelled like an expensive hotel's lobby.

Ethan was, as usual, in a beautiful suit, like one of those  suntanned
Academy Awards guys.  (But again, his  dandruff!) He greeted  us with,
"Good afternoooon, my precious content delivery system."

We asked Ethan if he wanted to throw Jarts with us, but he said, "Love
to, kids, but antidepressants  make me photosensitive. Sunlight  kills
me.  My retinas'll  get etched  like a  microchip. You  kids keep  on
playing. Sunlight is good for productivity." He and Dad then went into
the kitchen to discuss psychopharmacology while Mom made us a tray  of
Dagwood sandwiches.

* * *

Ethan told  me something  really cool.  He said  that the  reason lion
tamers brandish chairs  while cracking the  whip is because  the lions
are mesmerized by all four points of the chairs legs, but never all of
them at the same time - their attention is continually distracted, and
hence they are subdued.

Ethan  talks so  "big-time." I've  never heard  people talk  this way
before. Susan says he talks like characters in a miniseries.

I  agree with  Susan that  Ethan is  annoying, but  it's hard  to peg
exactly why - there are all these little things that he does that just
add up to ANNOYING.  When I really think  about it, I realize  that if
someone else did  those things they  probably wouldn't annoy  me. It's
just the  way he  is, all  smarmy and  fake genuine.  Like he's always
coming into the office and going up to me and saying, "How are you" in
this concerned voice while looking  deep into my eyes. Retch.  Like he
cares. And when I say, "Fine," he squeezes my shoulder and says,  "No,
really, how are you?" as though I wasn't really being honest. "I  know
you've been working hard." I never  know what to say so I  always just
look back at my screen and keep on coding.

Another annoying thing he does is ask you something about what  you're
working on, and just  as you start really  talking about it, he  takes
over and somehow ties  it into an anecdote  about himself. Like I  was
telling him about the problems we were having deciding whether or  not
Oop! will have sounds  or not, and how  we're trying to calculate  the
extra memory space sound would occupy and whether or not having sounds
adds enough value  to justify the  extra work. It  was like Ethan  was
just waiting  for a  place where  he could  break in.  He said, "Added
value.  What  an arbitrary  concept,  since it's  different  for every
person."  He then  launched into  this story  of holidaying  in Bali,
staying in little shacks  at this super-resort called  Amand-something
which  cost  $400 a  night  which even  had  little slaves  to  do his
bidding. In his mind it tied into the notion of "value-adding," but my
question about sound and memory was lost.

I sure wish we had that Bali money back now.

One must grudgingly admit  Ethan does seem to  know a good deal  about
Valley business. Like  many people in  computers and gaming,  he never
went to college.  He designed a  game that sold  millions in the  Pong
era, became a millionaire, went bust with Atari, became a  millionaire
again in Reagan's '80s with a SEGA-based something-or-other, went bust
again, and now I guess he's going to become a multimillionaire in  the
Multimedia '90s.

His tech credentials are good, too. Somewhere amidst all the money  he
did manage to squeak  in work with Xerox's  El Segundo Lab and  TRW in
Redondo Beach.

* * *

I’ve  never seen  a stock  get more  attention than  3DO. Everybody's
wondering if  they should  invest in  it. I  mean, if  we had money to
invest. I  must remember  to drive  by their  parking lot  some Sunday
afternoon.

* * *

Karla asked Mom out to lunch and  Mom balked at first - "I don't  know
how much time  the Library can  spare me for."  That kind of  thing. I
mean, if someone wants to have lunch with you, they simply don't  make
pseudo-excuses like that.

But Karla wore  her down, like  someone who's been  to Anthony Robbins
lectures. The three of us are going to have lunch later this week, but
I hope it isn't a grudge match.

* * *

I asked Michael what  he wanted for his  25th birthday next week.  His
message  flashed onto my screen at 2:40 A.M., from his office where he
was working with the door shut:

>Birthday:

I want one of  those keys you win  in video games, that  allows you to
blast through walls and reach the next level  get to *the other side*.

This is a particularly long message for Michael whose e-mail tends  to
be about three  words long, normally.  A carriage return,  punctuation
marks and everything!

* * *

Now that I've been thinking about it, I'm not sure what exactly Oop!'s
money structure is. Wouldn't it be a sick joke if I got into something
without understanding the  financial underpinnings .  . . if  I hadn't
even bothered to  ask the questions  I'm supposed to  ask because I've
never had  to ask  them before  because I'd  been coddled  to death by
benefits at Microsoft? Naaaaah . . .

* * *

There was a windstorm last night and a bunch of branches blew off  the
eucalyptus tree  beside the  garage. Around  sunset Bug,  Karla, and I
pretended  we  were  a  trio of  evil  Finnish  masseuses  named Oola,
swatting naughty victims with much vim. I've got mentholated scratches
all over my arms.

* * *

Karla is preparing a list of subjects to discuss at lunch with Mom.  I
said, "Karla, this is  a lunch, not a  meeting."  She wants to  make a
good impression so badly. I am surprised by how much that pleases me.

* * *

Michael is  furious at  Todd for  taping over  a VHS  cassette of Oop!
graphic  animatlion that  Michael had  done as  a demo  for potential
investors. Todd replaced it with The Best of Hockey Fights III.

* * *

Todd and Susan have the flu, so  I guess we're all doomed for it  now.
And  Ethan's been  acting weird  all week.  Our bank  account must  be
running on fumes again.

* * *

unraveled brown

cassette tape

on the freeway

Staples

CK-one

PIN number

basketball hoop

If we were machines,  we'd have the gift  of being eternal and  I want
you to understand


TUESDAY


Everybody's flu-ridden today except for  Ethan and me. Ethan asked  me
to accompany him up to Electronic Arts in San Mateo, and then down  to
a VC meeting out at the Venture Capital mall at the corner of the  280
and Sand Hill Road - in his ruby red Ferrari.

"The Ferrari is like a rite of passage here for new money. You buy one
at  26, get  it out  of your  system, flip  it for  a gray  Lexus or
Infiniti, and then you drive gray sedans the rest of your life. I keep
mine because I can't afford anything  else at the moment, and I  can't
afford the capital gains taxes if I sold it. I should get one of those
'DON'T LAUGH: AT  LEAST IT'S PAID  FOR' bumper stickers.  Nobody would
appreciate the irony that I'm holding on by my teeth."

We roared south  past the rolling  hills that oozed  trees and fog.  I
looked down at the palm of my hand, slapped it, and said, "Hey, Ethan
I'm looking at my sympathy-o-meter, and the needle isn't moving."

"It's the Valley, pal - think sideways. This is the Lexus Freeway, the
most scenic in America."

I told Ethan about the book on freeways I had read, Robert F.  Baker's
Handbook of Highway Engineering; Ethan in turn told me that 280 -  the
Lexus Freeway - is also nicknamed the Mensa Freeway.

I looked in  the glove compartment  and there was  a bottle of  Maalox
cherry. Ethan  said, "I  keep Maalox  in the  glove compartment of the
car,  and sometimes  I swig  it like  a wino  in parking  lots before
meetings. I  once walked  into this  meeting with  dried white  Maalox
powder  caked  on  my  lips  and  everybody  thought  it  was  coke or
something. I told them it was  Pixy Stix and they said, oh,  how cute,
but they still  thought I was  coked out. Man,  if they only  knew the
truth - that a Pixy stick would  burn a crater in my stomach like  Mt.
Saint Helens."

Then we got into a discussion about volcanoes, and the year Mt.  Saint
Helens erupted and that old guy who lived on top of the mountain,  who
was all crotchety, and wouldn't leave, and everybody thought he was  a
real individual - and then he got creamed when the mountain blew.  And
this got me thinking of all the  people at IBM, and I got to  thinking
about Dad and . . .

* * *

This is my first-ever VC meeting. Ethan has attended hundreds of  them
during his Valley career. Apparently, the Monday Partner's Meeting  is
a Silicon Valley tradition, according  to Ethan. They mostly occur  up
at the  venture capital  "mall" at  the corner  of Sand  Hill Road and
Interstate 280. Monday is when partners agree to agree. And Tuesday is
when the decisions are acted upon.

Fifteen years in  the business have  loaned Ethan a  rote tour-guidish
quality. Humming up the 280, he further briefed me on the situation:

"Initial  presentations are  made by  capital seekers.  If their  idea
seems promising, then there's a callback  for a broader presentation 
not unlike Broadway.

"The VC team by then will have run due-diligence checks - spoken  with
insiders who have provided background on an idea - its suitability  or
marketability -  as well  as checked  the technical  robustness of the
idea.  Essentially,  they  must  know  what  is  the  significance  or
defensibility  of  the technology  underlying  the idea?  What  is the
overall viability of the idea. What do you have that the others don't?
Is the  necessary technical  'acumen on  the team?  Michael and I have
been through this already. Today is the callback.

"We passed all  of the techie  checks, but the  VC firms aren't  quite
sure about Oop!’s marketability. With round-one seed capital, all  the
risk is ahead of  you. Plus, software is  a consumer, not a  corporate
business now - it's 10,000 units  off to CompUSA instead of one  jumbo
unit to Delta Airlines or National Cash Register.

"This isn't good for us,  because Silicon Valley firms have  little or
no experience  with Procter  & Gamble-style  focus grouping,  but they
won't admit it. So they  pose as multimedia visionaries instead.  They
might as well be slitting open a sheep and reading the entrails.  It's
a big exercise in chain-yanking. Let the floor show begin!"

We arrived and  got out of  the car. "Ethan,  here - some  leaves have
fallen on your  shoulder." I snowplowed  away drifts of  dandruff from
his suit. "There," I said, "all set."

* * *

Condensed Version . . .Venture Capital Meeting

(My First [and Last])

1) Me:

(I'm dressed  like an  outpatient; these  VC people  are dressed  like
they're about  to whisper  a deal  into David  Geffen's left  ear. Why
didn't Ethan dress me properly? He began flaking the moment we  walked
in the doorway. His shoulders!)

"Hello."

2) VC Woman with Barbra-Streisand-in-Concert Hairdo:

"Investors want to see  a committed, marketing-sensitive visionary  at
the product's  helm." (Who  the heck  is that.  . . Michael? Marketing
Sensitive?)

3) Me:

(Nodding and seeming interested)

"Hmmm ...."

4) A different VC with an eerie resemblance to Barry Diller:

"One of the  main reasons people  start companies is  to control their
environment and the people they work with."

Michael nods. Ethan agrees.

5) Richie Rich Boomersomething with loud Hermes tie:

silence

6) Barbra:

(earnestly)

"Is there -  an opening for  world class leadership  in this product's
area?"

7) Barry:

"Start-ups appeal either to jaded  cynics - because they know  the way
things really work  - or to  the totally naive  - because they  don't.
Which are you?"

8) Ethan:

"We're that irreducible 5 percent  of talented people - our  culture's
pearl divers."

9) Young VC guy, who would be the same age as Rosemary's Baby:

"You'll need more than lots of pearl divers . . ." (smug titters) "You
need focus groups.  People surprise you.  They tell you  that what you
thought was worth $99 is only worth $29."

10) Barry:

Sugarishly: "We have to function  as parents to new companies  who are
in the process of growing up."

11) Hermes tie:

more silence

12) Ethan:

"That's where I come in." (give prisoner last cigarette)

13) Ethan:

(now on a roll)

"VC was in a  lull until spring of  1992, and then came"  [awed pause]
"convergence. Unless there's a  breakthrough hit, by 1997,  multimedia
is going to be a leper industry. We have the missing killer app  right
here."

14) Barbra:

"Yes, but as a  VC firm we like  to feel we're beyond  'the hit thing'
now. In general, we  don't like small, technology-oriented  companies.
There's nothing the world wants as little as a new technology company.
If you give a company $2 million, they'll spend it all and never  ship
a profitable product."

15) Hermes tie:

noise of his silence equals noise of his tie

16) Rosemary's Baby:

"With a round-one seed, all of the risk is ahead of you."

17) Barry:

"Frankly, we're not totally convinced you have a crew that can  market
your product, that is, should it even make it past beta."

18) Me:

(Detached metaphysical perspective: as  we speak, the Stanford  Linear
Accelerator, a quarter of a  mile south, running underneath the  Mensa
Freeway,  is  quietly blowing  up  atoms into  quarks  and bosons  and
leptons and Fruity Pebbles.)

"Hmmm."

19) Ethan:

"Frankly,"  (Oooh  - everybody's  trying  to compete  with  each other
through overuse of  the word frank)  "I have brought  four products to
market  myself.  Four very  successful  products. (Unspoken  sentiment
hangs in the air like dying fart: "Yeah, but your companies all tanked
within a year.") "Our  staff is so dedicated  to the project they  are
working without pay until an alpha version is ready."

20) Me:

(Inside thought balloon above my head  as Ethan looks at me with  this
big  You're-fucked-and-you-have-no-choice''  in  front  of  all  these
suits):

"What do you mean working without pay?"

21) Me:

(Out loud)

"We have to have a product that  works first, and we can take care  of
the business side, with your help . . ." (The one thing I say and it's
obsequious and stupid. Q: Do I feel like a liability? A: Yes.)

22) Hermes Tie:

"We'd like to help you .  . . mwah mwah mwah (Charlie  Brown's Teacher
noise) . . . no infrastructure . . . mwah mwah mwah . . . no corporate
plan for growth . . . mwah mwah mwah. . . ." (Pull trap door)

23) Rosemary's Baby:

(Parting shot to me, in confidence, after the others have left -  like
he's really  helping us  out as  he discreetly  escorts me  toward the
Mission oak doorway):  "You probably  wouldn't want  to work  for a VC
funded firm because in the end  they'll just crack the whip and  force
you to ship, even if it's not entirely full-featured."

24) Suits:

(I paraphrase)

"Please fuck off and die."

25) Ethan:

"Dinner, dance, and  a kiss at  the door. So  much for meeting  number
216. Well,  pal, there's  a saying  down in  these parts:  twenty-four
hours heals all wounds.

26) FIN

* * *

I asked Ethan in the Ferrari on  the way back to the office, "What  do
you mean we're working without pay?" and he said, "Well,  technically,
yes."

I flipped out: "Yes ?!"

Then he said, "Well, technically, no."

"Ethan, what the fuck is going on?" I asked.

"Don't be so petty bourgeois, Dan. Look at the big picture."

The Ferrari passed about eight cars  in one fell swoop. I didn't  want
to look petty. "I'm not petty, Ethan, " I said.

"And I am?''

"That's not the issue."

"Stop being so linear about money. Be horizontal. It's all cool."

* * *

I asked Mom what she thought of Karla and she said she thought she was
"delightful." Sounded a bit forced.

* * *

No flu symptoms yet.


WEDNESDAY


Lunch today.

Karla was draggy with  the flu, but she  forced herself to come.  She,
Mom, and  I went  to lunch  at the  Empire Grill  and Tap  Room. As we
entered, there were two seeing-eye dogs and two blind masters standing
near to each other. Within seconds, Mom was down on the floor chatting
with the  dogs. She  then interrogated  the dogs'  owners: "Do you two
hang around together a lot? Do your dogs get to visit each other? They
would make  good company  for each  other, you  know." (My  mother the
matchmaker.)

The two owners laughed and said, "I should think so - we're married."

Mom exclaimed, "Oh - how wonderful - they can discuss their jobs  with
each other!" (Mom's  a true Silicon  Valley girl -  she grew up  here,
down in Sunnyvale.) "Oh my, you  must meet Misty -" and she  raced out
to the car to fetch Misty, and the three dogs were soon sniffing  each
other.

I was aching to  get to lunch, but  Mom and the two  blind people were
deep in DogTalk. I went out to Mac's and bought a copy of the San Jose
Mercury News. When  I returned they  were still there,  laughing. They
exchanged cards,  and afterward  I asked  Mom what  they were laughing
about, and she said, "We tried to think of the worst seeing-eye  breed
imaginable and we came up  with the idea of the  'seeing-eye whippet,'
prancing into traffic . . . isn't that a riot? Perhaps you could  make
a video game out of it, like that Pong game that was so much fun  that
Christmas years ago."

Mom, like most people her age, will know Pong as their sole video game
experience. It's tragic.

* * *

At lunch, Mom  preempted all other  conversation starts by  discussing
Michael.  "Sometimes I think that  Michael  is  ummm - autistic."  She
blushed.  "Oh, of  course, what  I mean  to say  is -well  - have  you
noticed?"

"Michael's not like other people," I  said. "He goes off into his  own
world  - for  days at  a time  sometime. A  few months  ago he  locked
himself into his office and we  had to slide food under his  door. And
so he stopped  eating any food  that couldn't be  slipped underneath a
door."

"Oh, so that explains the Kraft cheese slices. Carton-loads."

Karla,  still low  energy from  the flu,  broke in:  "You know,  Mrs.
Underwood, I  think all  tech people  are slightly  autistic. Have you
ever heard about dyspraxia? Michael is an elective mute."

"No."

"Dyspraxia's like  this: say  I asked  you to  give me that newspaper.
There's no reason on earth why you couldn't. But if you had dyspraxia,
then you'd be  blocked and you'd  just sit there  frozen. Dyspraxia is
the condition where you become incapable of initiating an action."

"Then everybody is dyspraxic, dear. It's called procrastination."

"Exactly. It's just that geeks are slightly more so than most  people.
Autism's a good  way of focusing  out the world  to exclude everything
but the work at hand."

I added that Michael was also the opposite of a dyspraxic, too. "If he
has an idea,  he acts on  it. But he  has to put  the idea into action
immediately - like this  company - or with  an elegant strip of  code.
He's a blend of the two extremes."

Karla added, "The  doors in Michael's  brain are wide  open to certain
things, while simultaneously  nailed shut to  all others. And  we must
admit, he does get  things done. He has  no brakes on certain  topics.
He's a true techie geek."

Mom looked askance.

I said, "You can say geeks now, Mom."

"Yes, well, you geeks are an odd blend of doors and brakes."

* * *

The discussion  changed to  the (groan)  information superhighway. "Do
you think libraries are going  to become obsolete?" she said  stirring
her coffee and fearing for her job. "Books?"

Karla lapsed  into a  discussion of  the Dewey  decimal system and the
Library of Congress  cataloging system, which  was numbing to  say the
least. Mom found herself begrudgingly getting very into the discussion
of cataloging. Librarians love order, logic, and linearity.

In the end lunch  was like a balloon  with not enough helium  in it to
float - not enough  helium in it to  even puff it up,  really. I think
the dynamic  of Mom  and Karla's  relationship has  been set. At least
they don't hate each other. Truthfully, I'm a little worried . . . why
is Mom being like this?

* * *

Later on, I found myself being the only person working in the  office.
It was so strange, and I  can't remember the last time this  happened.
Actually, I wasn't totally alone:  Look and Feel were scurrying  about
inside their Habitrail. But other than  that, I was alone. It was  odd
to be the only  person in the office.  I wished I could  go to Kinko's
and photocopy myself . . . be more productive.

* * *

Karla found this allergy medicine I've been taking and said, "This  is
what's been causing your nightmares." She could be right - I hope  she
is. I'm going to stop as of today.


THURSDAY


No nightmares last night.


FRIDAY


Again, no nightmares. Problem solved?

Misty came into our  work space and barked  at Look and Feel.  Gerbils
really stink. I'll be glad if we ever get out of this space.


SATURDAY


Karla  and I  were watching  cartoons, and  that old  Warner Brothers
cartoon came on with the frog that's buried in cement in the 1920s and
comes alive and  sings and dances,  but only in  front of one  person.
Karla looked  at it  and said,  "That's me  around your  mother. I sit
around and say 'ribbet' around her, but I'm the dancing, singing  frog
around you."

* * *

Everyone is  getting a  cold and  sounds nasal  and scary.  Todd said,
"Man, you don't want to see the  stuff coming out of my nose into  the
Kleenex. Eggs Benedict."

Thanks, Todd.

* * *

Look and Feel had babies! We think there are five, pink and plump,  so
we're going  to call  them Lisa,  Jazz, Classic,  Point, and Click. We
hope they don't get eaten by their parents. We put raw hamburger  into
the Habitrail tubes to  keep Look and Feel  away from "the kids."  The
Habitrail is actually  rather like Lagan's  Run. Imagine gerbils  with
little 1970s feathered hairdos!

* * *

I was up at Ethan's  frighteningly chic house tonight (all  those bank
cameras) and told him about the other night, when I wished I could  go
to Kinko's and photocopy myself. He misunderstood me. I merely  wanted
to increase my productivity, but  he thought I was getting  all cosmic
and wanted to discuss the universe, and this became a cue for Ethan to
commandeer the conversation into his direction, as usual.

Ethan did the "Ethan Thing" and went off on a tangent about himself He
said, "I've already photocopied myself!"

He  explained: "People  tend to  assume that  as we  get older,  years
naturally start feeling shorter and  shorter - that this is  'nature's
way.' But this is crap. Maybe what's really happening is that we  have
increased the information  density of our  culture to the  point where
our perception of time has become all screwy.

"I began noticing long ago that years are beginning to shrink - that a
year no longer felt  like a year, and  that one life was  not one life
anymore - that "life multiplication" was going to be necessary.

"You never  heard about  people 'not  having lives'  until about  five
years ago, just when all  of the ' 80s technologies  really penetrated
our lives." He listed them off:

"VCRs

tape rentals

PCs

modems

answering machines

touch tone dialing

cellular phones

cordless phones

call screening

phone cards

ATMs

fax machines

Federal Express

bar coding

cable TV

satellite TV

CDs

calculators of almost other-worldly power that are so cheap that  they
practically come free with a tank of gas."

"In  the  information Dark  Ages,  before 1976,  before  all of  this,
relationships  and television  were the  only forms  of entertainment
available. Now we have other things. Fortunately depression runs in my
family."

"Fortunately ?"  I asked.

"Absolutely, pal. I couldn't figure out  a way of rigging my brain  to
work  in parallel  instead of  linear mode  - and  then they  invented
Prozac and all the Prozac isomers  and kablam! - my brain's been  like
an Oracle parallel processing server ever since."

"I'm not sure I get this, Ethan."

"Prozac is great  - and I  think it goes  beyond seratonin and  uptake
receptors and that kind of  thing. I think these chemicals  physically
rewire your  brain to  think in  parallel. It  literally converts your
brain from Macintosh or IBM into a Cray C3 or a Thinking Machines CM5.
Prozac-type chemicals don't suppress feelings  - they break them  down
into smaller 'feeling units,'  which are more quickly  computationally
processed by the new, parallel brain."

"I think I need a second to digest this, Eth-"

"I don't. Linear thinking is out. Parallel is in."

"Explain to me more clearly -  how does whatever you take affect  your
time?"

"I remember once when I  was majorly depressed for, like,  six months.
When it  ended, I  felt like  I had  to make  up for  those six 'lost'
months. Man,  depression sucks.  So my  logic is,  as long  as I'm not
bummed, I'm not  wasting time. So  I make sure  I'm never bummed."  He
seemed quite happy to be telling his theory.

"You know how  when somebody says,  'Remember that party  at the beach
last year?' and you  say, 'Oh God, was  that last year? It  feels like
last month'? If I'm going to live a year, I want my whole year's worth
of year. I don't want it feeling like only one month. Everything I  do
is an attempt to  make time 'feel' like  time again - to  make It feel
longer. I get my time in bulk."

* * *

I left  Ethan's thoroughly  depressed, and  not sure  whether I  still
disliked Ethan  or just  felt sorry  for him.  I e-mailed  Abe with  a
synopsis of  Ethan's time  theory, and  he was  online and answered me
right away:

>What would happen if  TV caracters continued their  theoretical lives
in our linear  time . .  . Bob and  Emily Hartley, in  their early 70s
now, would be living in their brown apartment, wrinkled and childless.
Or Mary Tyler Moore, now 68 . . . surely bitter, alone, sterile . . .

Prozac!

* * *

SpaghettiOs

Aspirin

invasion

What's My Line

Jell-O simulator

Russian winter

Q: What animal would you be if you could be an animal?

A: You already are an animal


SUNDAY


Ethan  phoned me  and asked  me to  come over  to San  Carlos. When  I
arrived, he was on a cordless phone in his kitchen, leaving me in  his
ultra-monitored living  room reading  his copies  of Cellular  Buyer's
Guide, Dr.  Dobbs Journal,  LAN Times  - and  Game Pro  (#1 Video Game
Magazine).

He came out of  the kitchen wearing an  Intel T-shirt - rare,  as I've
never seen him in  anything but a shirt  and tie in all  the time I've
known him.  He was  wearing jeans,  too. "It's  Friday -  'jeans day,'
pal," he said.

He then sat down on the couch beside me and there was this silence  as
he shuffled his coffee table magazines back into geometric orderliness
after my perusal, and then he  sat back on the white leather  with his
arm behind my back.

I  pointed out  that his  copy of  Binary File  Transfer Monthly  was
possibly the most boring document I'd  ever seen in my life. He  said,
"Well, what  if it  were actually  a copy  of Penthouse  Forum letters
encrypted as something so dull  and opaque, that nobody would  realize
that it was  something else. Imagine  an encryption system  that could
reconfigure  the  words,  'I  am a  sophomore  at  a  small midwestern
college'  into 'Does not conform to ITCU Convention specifications for
frequency ranges.'  It'd be  the biggest  stroke of  encryption genius
since the U.S. military used  Navajo Indians to speak freely  over the
radio about top secret operations."

He then became quiet and still, and the presence of his arm behind  me
was eerily warm. I stiffened my posture. The scenario felt so  charged
-  the  whole situation.  I  felt like  a  Yankee schoolteacher  on  a
Hollywood casting couch. He said to me, "I have something important  I
have to ask of you,  pal," and I thought, "Oh  God - here it is  . . .
I'm going to get hit on."

He then removed  his T-shirt, and  I was trying  to be cool  about the
situation, and I was truly freaking out as Ethan's not really my, err,
cup o' tea. He was reading my mind and  said to me, "Don't be a prig 
I'm not gonna jump you, but I am going to ask you a favor."

"Oh?"

"Chill out, it's not that kind of favor."

His missing T-shirt  revealed a torso  of average buffitude,  "You can
see,  I'm  no Todd,"  he  said, and  then  he turned  around,  and I'm
embarrassed to admit it, but I gasped. His rotation revealed his  back
covered in a matrix of bandages, dried blood and micro-pore tape,  and
it looked as  if several soiled  disposable diapers had  been taped to
his skin all higgledy-piggledy. "It's this . . . these."

I said,  "Ethan, what  the fuck  is this  all about?  Did you  have an
accident? Jesus!"

"Accident? Who gives a shit . . . ozone . . . a bologna sandwich I ate
in third grade  . . .  one hour too  many in front  of a Russian-built
VDT.  But  it's  a part  of  me,  Dan .  .  .  the damage  .  .  . the
whateverthefuck it is. It's moles gone bad. Maybe they're gone forever
and, well, maybe they're not."

I  was  trying  to  look  away,  but  he  said,  "That  is  so fucking
insulting," and he jumped up and  sat on the coffee table facing  away
from me,  sticking the  bandages in  my face.  I then  looked and  was
mesmerized  by  this  bio-mash of  cotton,  plastic,  and body  fluids
barnacled to his skin. I didn't say anything.

"Dan?" he asked.

"Yeah . . ."

"You gotta remove them for me."

"Yeah?"

"There's nobody else who'll do it for me. You know that, Dan?"

"There's nobody?"

"Nobody."

I looked some more  and he said, "Doc  hacked 'em out of  me like they
were divots on the thirteenth fairway  a week ago. And not one  of you
dumb  bastards  ever even  bothered  to ask  why  I was  going  to the
dermatologist. Nobody asked and I had nobody to tell."

"Jesus, Ethan - we thought  you were going to the  dermatologist about
your dandruff."

"I have dandruff?"

"It's, ummm, nothing out of the ordinary." I touched the bandages  and
they felt crackly, like Corn Flakes.

"You said I had dandruff?"

"Ethan. Discussing body malfunctions is like discussing salaries.  You
don't do it."

"Fine. Can you just remove them? They itch. They hurt."

"Yeah, of course."

He went  into the  kitchen and  came back  with a  bottle of  hydrogen
peroxide solution, rubbing alcohol, and old shirts cut into strips for
rags. And so with him on the coffee table I removed chunk after bloody
chunk, snipping away at his back and pulling scraps away, horrified at
exactly how much of him had been removed.

We were  talking. He  said he  can't believe  how far  dermatology has
advanced in  the past  ten years.  "They can  practically put  a small
video camera inside your body and the doctor says to you, 'This is how
your zit  sees the  world,' and  they have  a camera  looking out from
inside the zit."

I asked him  what his prognosis  was, and he  said, "Shhh, pal  - it's
just the devil in me, but let's hope he's gone."

* * *

In the end, after all of the plastic, cotton, and dried blood and rags
were gone,  his back  looked as  though craters  of the  moon had been
stitched together, violet and swollen.  I used a small hair  dryer and
dried off  the stitches,  and when  I turned  off the  hair dryer, the
noise was  somehow shocking,  and Ethan  still sat  there, hunched and
breathing, and I felt sorry for him, which is something I would  never
have thought imaginable toward Ethan.  I said, "The devil in  you, the
devil in me," and I grabbed him as gingerly as I could from behind and
he moaned, but it wasn't a sex moan, just the moan of someone who  has
found something valuable that they had thought was lost forever.

We lay  down on  the couch,  me clasping  his chest  from behind,  his
breathing becoming deeper and slower,  and he said, "You and  Karla do
that shiatsu stuff, right?"

"Yeah. We do. But you've got a  few too many stitches for that at  the
moment." I told him a bit  of Karla's theories of the body  and memory
storage. He laughed and said, "Ow! - Christ, stitches hurt," and  then
he said, "Well,  if that's the  case then think  of me as  a PowerBook
dropped onto a marble floor from a tenth-story balcony."

I said, "Don't laugh at yourself. Your body is you, too." I felt  like
I had to heal here, or else something would leave Ethan forever, so  I
held him a  bit tighter. "Karla  told me that  in other cultures,  the
chest is often  thought of as  being the seat  of thought. Instead  of
slapping yourself on the forehead when you forget something, like a V
8, instead you slap yourself on the chest."

Ethan  said,  "I guess  that  if you  start  young enough,  you  could
actually consider your toes as the seat of your thought. If you  tried
to remember something, you'd scratch your toe."

I said this is possible.

And then I simply held him. And then we both fell asleep, and that was
six hours ago. And I have  been thinking about it, and I  realize that
Ethan has fallen prey  to The Vacuum. He  mistakes the reward for  the
goal; he does not realize that there is a deeper aim and an altruistic
realm  of  technology's  desire.  He  is  lost.  He  does  not connect
privilege with responsibility; wealth with  morality. I feel it is  up
to me to help him become found. It is my work, it is my task; it is my
burden.

* * *

I am Bill's machine

I may be the largest machine that will ever be built.

I may be the richest machine that will ever be built.

I may be the most powerful machine that will ever be built.

Raised with Cheerios and station wagons.

Diagonal-slotted parking stalls of the Northgate mall.

As a child I once drove  in a sedan's backseat along Interstate  5 and
looking out  the windows  I saw  my city  beside the  sea, dreaming in
airplanes  and wood;  metal and  rock ballads  . .  . better  ways of
living.  Golden  sun  falling  on  this  city  that  wanted  for more;
sailboats atop the golden water.

Pocket calculators

sneakers

cheeseburgers

Datsun

The challenge of newness

Saturday morning cartoons recycling programs crying Indians.

You think you can live without me, but just try.

You desire images of a better tomorrow; I feed you these images.

You dream of a world in which your ego will not dissolve.

I am the architect of the arena.

Reconsider  your notions  of what  you think  will rescue  you from  a
future sterilized of progress.


4

FaceTime


MONDAY


Everybody's decided  what title  to put  on the  business cards  Susan
designed.

Bug: "Information Leafblower"

Todd: "Personal Trainer"

Karla: "Who can turn the world on with a smile?"

Susan: "Her name is Rio."

Me: "Crew Chief"

Ethan: "Liquid Engineer"

Michael: "You're Soaking In It"

We got in  this discussion about  the word "nerd."  "Geek" is now,  of
course, a compliment, but we're  not sure about "nerd." Mom  asked me,
"What, exactly, is the difference between a nerd and a geek?"

I replied, "It's  tougher than it  seems. It's subtle.  Instinctual. I
think geek implies hireability, whereas nerd doesn't necessarily  mean
your skills are 100 percent sellable. Geek implies wealth."

Susan said that  geeks were usually  losers in high  school who didn't
have  a life,  and then  not having  a life  became a  status symbol.
"People like them never  used to be rewarded  by society. Now all  the
stuff  that made  people want  to kick  your butt  at fifteen  becomes
fashionable  when fused  with cash.  You can  listen to  Rush on  the
Ferrari stereo on your way to get a good seat at II Fornaio - and wear
Dockers doing it!"

Todd, not surprisingly, added, "Right now is the final end-stage when

God said the meek  shall inherit the earth.  Is it a coincidence  that
geek

rhymes with meek? I think not. A dipthongal accident."

Mom said, "Oh you kids! I guess I'm just not in the loop."

Being "in  the loop"  is this  year's big  expression. Only three more
weeks remain before  the phrase becomes  obsolete, like an  Apple Lisa
computer.

Language is such a technology.

* * *

All day Michael kept on humming a refrain from the Talking Heads  song
"Road to Nowhere." I asked him to sing something a bit more uplifting.
The flu  epidemic has  left us  all at  low ebb.  Or does Michael know
something about E&M Software that we don't? I dare not ask.

* * *

Pi fight! Late afternoon:

It  turns out  that Ethan  knows pi  up to  10,000 digits,  just like
Michael, so the two of them sat there in the Habitrail and banged  off
strands  of numbers,  like a  Gregorian chant.  In stereo  - it  felt
religious. Work stopped dead and we sat there listening.

"Four."      "Four."

"Seven."      "Seven."

"Zero."      "Zero."

"One."      "One"

"Eight."      "Eight."

"Three."      "Three."

"Eight."      "Eight."

"Nine."      "Nine."

"Zero."      "Zero."

"Three."      "Three."

"Four."      "Four."

"One."      "One."

Ethan has risen in our collective estimation considerably as a result.

* * *

I  must  add  that  Dad  visits  the  Habitrail  every  single  night,
recharging Michael's Tang and  bringing him serial volleys  of snacks.
"Some fruit leather, Michael? - oh look - there's one blueberry  strip
remaining."  I'll say,  "Hi, Dad,"  and he  sort of  turns around  and
stumbles for words and grunts, "Hi, Dan."

But then I  suppose I ought  to be grateful.  Dad looks 1,000  percent
better than  he did  up in  Redmond -  so long  ago, it now seems. His
hair's going white, though.

Also, Michael is  using Jed's desk  and lamp in  his bedroom down  the
hall from my room. Mom and Dad moved all of Jed's things to Palo  Alto
when they moved, as  though he was just  away at school. I'm  not even
using my old lamp. Everyone else uses IKEA and lawn furniture.

I  recognize that  I'm avoiding  something here:  Michael using  Jed's
lamp. Dad  hasn't mentioned  Jed once  since Michael  moved in.  Maybe
that's what's bothering me. I'm in denial.


TUESDAY


The  house  down  the hill  from  us  burned down  around  two  in the
afternoon.  Fwoosh!  We all  went  out on  the  verandah and  watched,
drinking coffee and sitting on an old pool slide turned onto its side.
Mom was loading up  the car, but Dad  said it was no  big deal because
the vegetation  wasn't dry  enough for  "you know,  another open-hills
thing."

A pair of  hawks nesting nearby  were diving into  the smoke plume.  I
guess there were mice and things running away. Like a buffet table for
birds.

The first time I ever saw a house burn down was the first time I heard
the English Beat version of "Tears  of a Clown" on the radio,  and the
two memories are toasted onto each other in my head like an EPROM.

Memory!

* * *

Later, Michael and Dad  and I were buying  AAA batteries at the  Lucky
Mart down on Alma Street, a main corridor through Palo Alto, and  then
out in the parking  lot Michael and Dad  began waving at the  CalTrain
that was screaming northward up the tracks, headed into the Palo  Alto
station.  Once  it  had  passed  I  asked  Michael,  just  by  way  of
conversation, why it is that people wave at trains.

He said,  "We wave  at people  in trains  because their  lives - their
cores - are so intensely  and powerfully reflected in the  inexorable,
unstoppable roaring dreams of  motion and voyage and  discovery, which
trains embody. One can't help  but admire the power and  brutality and
singularity of decision  a moving train  implies. Wouldn't you  agree,
Mr. Underwood?"

Does Michael practice these things?  Where does he get them  from? And
wouldn't you just know Michael's a train nut like my dad.

* * *

I say "Ummm . . ." a lot. I mentioned this to Karla and she says  it's
a CPU word. "It means you're assembling data in your head - spooling."

I also  say the  word "like"  too much,  and Karla  said there  was no
useful explanation  for people  saying this  word. Her  best guess was
that saying "like" is  the unused 97 percent  of your brain trying  to
make its presence known. Not too flattering.

I think I'm going to try  and do mental Find-and-Replace on myself  to
eliminate  these  two  pesky words  altogether.  I'm  trying to  debug
myself.

* * *

Karla is changing herself, too. She's becoming a womanly woman.  She's
growing her hair and trying to look like an adult. Right now she looks
in  between, as  do most  techies. Her  skin certainly  looks better.
Actually,  we all  have better  skin .  . .  except maybe  for Ethan.
California sunshine and an attempt  to at least slightly cut  the crap
food seems to have positive epidermal results.

Smoother skin in seven days.

Karla drinks Ovaltine instead of  coffee. She drinks it from  her high
school reunion mug. Her reunion actually had custom mugs, and this  is
so weird.  Susan looked  at the  mug last  week and  asked, "Your high
school reunion  had horizontally  cross-marketed merchandise  tie-ins?
Where'd you go to high school . . . Starbucks?"

Apparently there's some  company in Texas  that helps you  market your
reunion.

Beware of the corporate invasion of private memory.

* * *

Misty  busted  into my  work  space after  all  the fire  engines  and
everything left, and pawed and slobbered all over me. She smelled like
roses and top soil, so I guess  she was down in her special grotto  in
the lower yard.

Ethan came into the office shortly afterward trying to lug Misty  out,
but instead Misty  barraged him with  dirty fur and  mouth goo, and  I
know Ethan enjoyed it. He said to her, "Quite often I feel like pawing
and  slobbering over  people I  like, too,  but I  never, of  course,
actually do it."

I told  Ethan that  I speak  in an  unrestricted manner  to animals  
things like, aren't you just the  cutest little kitty . . .  that kind
of thing, which I wouldn't dream of doing to humans. Then I realized I
wish I could.

Misty really would  have made a  terrible seeing-eye dog.  She'd bound
into traffic to greet truck drivers. Ethan lured Misty outside with  a
Cocoa  Puffs  promotional  Frisbee,   and  then  stood,  wearing   his
sunglasses, beneath the balcony's shade  and played with her a  while.
He didn't seem to  mind the muck  all over his  Dolce & Gabbana  three
piece.

Ethan just wants some company. He's spending far more time around  the
Habitrail these days since The Hug. We all hug Ethan a lot now because
suddenly he's human and Karla held  a small meeting the day after  the
bandage-removal episode and  told us all  we had to  be extra kind  to
Ethan. I  haven't mentioned  it at  all to  Ethan though  - too weird.
Susan was in shock.

After a while Ethan and I went down to look at the rubble of the house
below. Gone. Fwoosh!

* * *

Ethan said  something provocative  and left  me dangling.  He muttered
something about  "Michael's expensive  little addiction,"  and I  said
"Robitussin? It's cheap," and

Ethan said "Robitussin?"  so I said,  "Well, what did  you mean then?"
and he said, "Nothing." I hate it when people only open the floodgates
a little bit, and then close it up again.

* * *

Oh - Ethan is trying to wean himself off cel phones. Good luck!

* * *

I heard a lovely expression today about brains - an ad for smart drugs
touting thicker, bushier dendrites.

Moist little tumbleweeds blooming inside one's skull.

* * *

Susan  was  doing  her  biannual  hard-drive  cleanup,  which  is half
chore/half  fun  - going  on  a deleting  frenzy,  removing all  those
letters  that once  seemed so  urgent, that  now seem  pointless, the
shareware  that infected  your files  with mystery  viruses and  those
applications that seemed groovy at the time.

Susan's own efforts did  get me to do  a brief cleanup of  my own hard
drive. I thought of Karla's equation of the body with the computer and
memory storage and all of that,  and I realized that human beings  are
loaded with germs and viruses, just like a highly packed Quadra - each
of us are bipedal  terrariums containing untold millions  of organisms
in   various   states    of   symbiosis,   pathogenesis,    mutualism,
commensualism, opportunism, dormancy,  and parasitism. We're  like Pig
Pen from Charlie Brown, enclosed in a perpetual probabilistic muzz  of
biology.

I posted a question on the  Net, asking bioheads out there what  lurks
inside the human hard drive.

* * *

Michael and Dad were out in the backyard later on watching R2D2  clean
out the pool. There was a fair amount of soot because of the fire.

* * *

Around midnight  I was  in the  reflective mode  and walked around the
streets  by  myself.  I  felt  as  though  I  was  walking  around the
neighborhood on Bewitched. "Look - it's Larry Tate driving a big, ugly
mattress of a car! One great big honking machine."

I thought about the word  "machine." Funny, but the word  itself seems
almost quaint, now. Say it over a few times: machine, machine, machine
- it's so .  . . so  . . .  ten-years-ago. Obsolete. Replaced  by post
machines. A good piece of technology dreams of the day when it will be
replaced by  a newer  piece of  technology. This  is one definition of
progress.


machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine
machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine
machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine
machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine
machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine  machine
machine machine machine machine

[Formatter's note: Pages 180 - 181 have nothing but the word "machine"
on them.]


Windows

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WEDNESDAY


This morning  I was  sitting by  the pool  with Michael,  watching him
watch the R2D2 pool cleaner. I mentioned last night's machine/progress
notion. He  was eating  a Snickers  leftover from  Halloween trick-or
treating,  and  said, "If  you  can conceive  of  humans developing  a
consciousness more complex than their own, then BINGO, you believe  in
progress whether or not you even think so."

So I guess I believe in progress.

Michael was staring into the clean blue fluid, an anti-Narcissus,  and
he twiddled  his index  finger in  it. He  said, "You  know, Daniel, I
wonder if, after all these years, I have been subliminally modeling my
personality  after machines  - because  machines never  have to  worry
about human things - because if they don't get touched or feel things,
then they don't know the difference.  I think this is a common  thing.
What do you think?"

I said, "I  think nerds secretly  dream of speaking  to machines -  of
asking them, 'What do you think and feel - do you feel like me ?'"

Michael asked me, "Do you think humanoids - people - will ever  design
a machine that can pray? Do  we pray to machines or through  them? How
do we use machines to achieve our deepest needs?"

I said I hope we do. He wondered out loud, "What would R2D2 say to  me
if R2D2 could speak?"

* * *

My brain is  built of paths  and slides and  ladders and lasers  and I
have invited all of you to enter its pavilion. My brain, as you enter,
will smell of tangerines and brand-new running shoes.

HELLO

My name is:

UNIX

Friend

or

Foe?

* * *

I went out shopping for memory  this afternoon with Todd and Karla.  I
had to get a strip of 27512 EPROMs - at Fry's, the nerd superstore  on
El Camino Real near Page Mill Road.  I had to grovel to Ethan for  the
petty cash; so degrading.

The Fry's chain completely taps  into MSE: Male Shopping Energy.  This
is to say that  most guys have about  73 calories of shopping  energy,
and once these calories  are gone, they're gone  for the day -  if not
the week - and can't be regenerated simply by having an Orange  Julius
at the Food Fair. Therefore, to get  guys to shop, a store has to  eat
up all  of their  MSE calories  in one  crack-like burst.  Thus, Fry's
concentrates only on male-specific consumables inside their  cavernous
shopping  arena,  aisles  replete  with  dandruff,  bad  outfits,  and
nerdacious mutterings full of buried Hobbit references.

* * *

Near  the EPROM  shelves, Karla,  Todd, and  I were  marveling at  the
pyramids of Hostess  products, the miles  of computing magazines,  the
cascade of  nerdiana lifestyle  accessories: telecom  wiring supplies,
clips, pornography, razors, Doritos, chemicals for etching boards, and
all the components of the  intangible Rube Goldberg machines that  lie
just  beneath  the  Stealth  black  plastic  exterior  of  the  latest
$1,299.99 gizmo.  The only  thing they  don't have  is backrubs. Karla
tried  to find  tampons and  failed. "Make  mental note,"   she said,
speaking into an imaginary Dictaphone machine, "Fry's sells men's  but
not women's hygiene products."

Shortly after,  over near  the model  train mock-up  of the  Wild West
"Canyon City" was when I suddenly saw this kid who looked just like my
dear departed  brother Jed.  And that's  when I,  well, freaked out. I
stood frozen, and  Karla was saying,  "Dan, are you  okay?"  Then Todd
walked by,  and looked  over toward  where I  was staring, and blurted
out, "Hey, Dan - that kid looks  just like the kid in the pictures  in
your Dad's den."

Karla then understood,  and moved to  stand in front  of me, and  Todd
said, "Uh  oh .  . ."   and headed  off to  the CD player aisle. Karla
said, "Dan, come on. Let's go."

But I said, "That's him, Karla. I'm okay. But look at him. That's what
he looked like."

We followed  this doppel-Jed  around, but  it felt  too weird stalking
some one, so we stopped ourselves. I forgot my EPROMs, and we went and
sat on a parking island outside.

Todd came out and said, "Sorry about that."

I said  it didn't  matter, but  you know  what Todd  said? He said, "I
think  it does  matter. And  I do  care. So  can you  please tell  me?
Sometimes I think you underestimate  me, Underwood. So just give  me a
chance, okay?"

So we went to The Good Earth for turkey burgers and Smoothies  (Todd's
gym food)  and I  explained Jed  to Todd.  I think  I do underestimate
people. I don't know why I keep these things cramped up inside me. And
I think Todd is a friend to call me on it.

* * *

Afterward I quietly  went into Dad's  den, closed the  door behind me,
and looked  at Jed's  old photo,  in an  oval frame,  lost amid  Dad's
knicks  and  knacks. There  he  was as  he  always will  be,  slightly
yellowed, forever twelve and forever smarter than me.

I guess I  feel dumb in  the same way  Karla feels dumb.  Except Karla
really is  smart  compared  to her  family,  and  I really  am  dumb  
compared to  Jed.  He wrote  such  lovely things  when  he was  here  
stories about air pilots  working with scientists fighting  to protect
Earth from being stolen.

Imaginative.

You just  can't compete  with the  dead. It  would be  easier if I had
another brother or a sister, but I was born after the Pill.

Anyway,  this is  all to  say I  went into  the worst  head space  all
afternoon, as though I'd taken eleven of those cold tablets containing
both an upper and a downer to cancel out the mutual side effects. So I
merely felt buzzed. Just like after too much coding.

* * *

Abe's e-mail is getting more frequent and more personal. I think  he's
losing it up at Microsoft. He doesn't like his new roommates and would
seem to be missing us.

The 2 new roomates are both engaged to partner units and don't want to
hang out. They're NEVER here.

I suppose there's  nothing wrong with  my not having  a life. So  many
people no longer have  lives that you raeally  have to wonder if  some
new mode of  existence is being  created which is  going to become  so
huge that it is no longer on  the moral scale - simply the way  people
ARE.

Myabe thinking you're  supposed to "have  a life" is  a stupid way  of
buying into an  untenable 1950s narrative  of what life  *supposed* to
be.

How do we know that all of these people with "no lives" aren't  really
on the new frontier of human sentience and perceptions?

I only need 2 hours of people a  day. I can; get by on that amount.  2
hours of FaceTime.

I replied:

2 hours of FaceTime is not good enough Abe.

YOU are not a productmanager, and life  is not a product . . .  though
wouldn't it be SO MUCH CLEANER AND EASIER were that so.

Nonetheless, this line of thinking reminds me of the URBAN LEGEND of a
Japanese exchange student  who thought he  was saving money  by eating
nothing but Top  Ramen noodles every  day for a  year, but he  died of
malnutrition before he graduatd.

* * *

After sundown, Karla and I went  out to the garage to see  Dad's model
train world. Mom says  he hasn't been in  there at all since  he began
working  with  Michael -  after  returning from  "his  episode" up  in
Redmond. I guess this is a good sign - that he's stopped obsessing and
is out in the world and doing new things.

Todd and Michael had plonked down two monitors right in the middle  of
the  landscape  directly atop  a  farm. They  had  arranged the  small
animals in small  herds atop the  monitors, which are  coaxial'ed into
the Habitrail. The monitors  were displaying some Gouraud-shaded  Oop!
bricks, rotating them in 3D space. Oop! is looking really good, by the
way. It looks fresh and modern, as if the future is being squeezed out
of the monitor screens like meat from a hamburger grinder. Todd  taped
a note to one monitor saying,

PLEASE GOD, LET RENDERING TIME GET CHEAPER AND FASTER.

Karla  had brought  along a  feather duster  and she  dusted off  the
mountains and the village and  the little white house Dad  built where
Jed is supposed to live. I  turned on the trains, and we  watched them
drive around, through the towns, over the mountains, past the rotating
building blocks,  and then  we turned  the trains  off, and turned the
lights out and left. Dad doesn't  seem to mind "us kids" stealing  his
world.

* * *

We call the two systems in the garage "Cabernet" and "Chardonnay."

Three  other  system units  (two  Quadras and  a  Pentium) are  called
"Ogre,"  "Hobgoblin,"  and  "Kestrel."  Two  file  servers  are called
"Tootie" and "Blair."

Our two printers are called "Siegfried" and "Roy," because they're all
shiny and plastic.

Our SGI Iris workstation running an old version of Vertigo software is
named, of course, "HAL."

I'm trying to end this day on an up note, but it's hard.


THURSDAY


Mom was  cleaning out  the spice  rack in  the kitchen.  I watered her
philodendron plant.  She was  really funny.  She said  she eats ripple
chips for breakfast now. She says it's a bad habit and she's trying to
break it and  she blames "us  kids"! She always  says, "You kids."  We
like it, even  though I think  I slopped thinking  of myself as  a kid
about four years ago. I don't mind responsibility. I guess that's  why
I don't mind the repetitive nature of computer work.

* * *

Boy did I get a response  to my Net question about the  organisms that
lurk inside the  human body. My  Pig Pen theory  was indeed confirmed:
the average human body contains 1  x 10^13 cells, yet hosts 1  x 10^14
bacterial cells. Long, scary names:

Escherichia coli

Candida albicans

S. aureus

Klebsiella

Actinomyces

Staphylococcus

It really  makes you  take seriously  all these  articles in  the news
about old diseases becoming new  diseases. I took so many  antibiotics
and sulfas for  zits in my  teens that I'm  going to be  felled by the
first postmodern virus to walk down Camino Real. Doomed.

I mentioned all  these microbes to  Susan and I  think she's going  to
become germ phobic. I could see it in her eyes. Fear.

* * *

Karla asked  me what  I thought  of modern  yuppie parents who smother
their kids with attention and  affection - those households where  the
kid rules and everything in  the universe revolves around making  sure
they get touched enough by their parents.

I paused and tried to be honest and the answer blurted out: "Jealous."
Susan overheard and started singing "Cars," by Gary Numan, and we  all
started singing it. Here in my car, I can only receive, I can lock  up
my doors . . .

And then the moment passed. I e-mailed Abe on the subject, and he  was
online, so the response came back immediately:

I come from one of those "zero-kidney" families . . . we all made this
agreement once  . .  . that  if anybody  else in  the family  needed a
kidney it was going to be, "Well, sorry . . . Been nice knowing you."

I think that's why it's so hard for me to understand my body.  Becauze
our family was so zero-touch.

As I type, I'm  bouncing my 11 pound  ball of rubber bands  contructed
form my daily Wall Street Journal. It grows.

* * *

I learned a great  new word today: "deletia."  When you get an  e-mail
and reply to  the sender, you  simply obliterate everything  they sent
you and then, in small square brackets, write:

[deletia]

It stands for everything that's been lost.

* * *

Dad bought  a P/S2  Model 70  computer just  before he  got fired.  He
stores it out in the garage  with the train world. Locked deep  inside
the P/S2's brains memory are WordPerfect, a golf application, and some
genealogical data he tried to assemble about our family, but which  he
abandoned after he finally realized  that our family erased itself  as
it moved across the country.


FRIDAY


Dad  mouthed  a  Michaelism  today: "If  you  can  conceive  of humans
developing a consciousness more complex  than the human brain at  some
point, then, BINGO, you're a de facto believer in Progress."

My ears were burning when I heard him say this, and it was all I could
do to not say, "That's Michael's quote." My ears were red.

* * *

E-mail from Abe:

Im re-reading all my old TinTin books, and I'm noticing that there are
all of these things absent in the Boy Detective's life . . . religion,
parents, politics, relationship,  communion with nature,  class, love,
death, birth .  . . it's  a long list.  And I find  that while I still
love TinTin, I'm getting currious about all of its invisible content.

* * *

The Valley is so career-o-centric.  So much career energy! There  must
be a 65-ton crystal of  osmium hexachloride buried 220 feet  below the
surface of Menlo Park, sucking in all of the career energy in the  Bay
Area and  shooting it  back down  the Peninsula  at twice light speed.
It's science fiction here.

* * *

Mom's signed up for a ladies 50-to-60 swim meet. It's next week.

* * *

Susan bought a case  load of premoistened towelettes  at Price-Costco.
She's mad at the rest of the Habitrail because it's such a pigsty. She
daintily wipes  off her  keyboard and  screen and  as she  does so she
says, "Man, I need a date, bad."

* * *

Karla's hair is down  past her shoulders now.  And she bought a  dress
with pink wildflowers on it, and it's funny, the way she's the same as
ever, yet also  reformatted, and it  makes me look  at her with  a new
fascination.

She's  eating all  sorts of  food like  a total  person now  and I've
noticed that when I work on her body, she's just not as tense anymore.
Everyone has a special place they store their tension (I'm on  shiatsu
duty), the same way everyone  misspells the same words over  and over.
Karla  stores her  tension in  her rhomboid  muscles, the  up-and-down
muscles of her spine,  and I remove it.  This is making me  feel good.
That I can do this.

* * *

Daydream: today the traffic  was locked on the  101. I saw visions  of
the Valley and snapped out of my daydream jealous of the future. I saw
germanium  in  the  groundwater  and  dead  careers.  I  saw   venture
capitalists with their eyes burned out in their sockets by visions  of
money, crashing their Nissans on the  101 - past the big blue  cube of
NASA's  Onizuka Air  Force Base,  their windows  spurting fluorescent
orange blood.


SATURDAY


Bug's dream came true today. He got to visit Xerox PARC with a  friend
of  a  friend from  Seattle.  Back with  us  in the  Habitrail,  while
arranging a handful of purple iceplant flowers nipped from the  PARC's
groundcover, he filled us in  on details: "It's set in  a purposefully
blank location - they cover up all outside traces of civilization with
berms  and  landscaping devices  so  you feel  as  if you're  nowhere.
Feeling like you're somewhere must be bad for ideas.

"Anyway, there's nothing  but chaparral and  oak trees on  the hill to
the  west, and  you feel  like you're  on a  virgin planet,  like the
planets they visit on Star  Trek. It feels really 'outposty.'  But not
scary, like you're in Antarctica. And  the lobby - it's like a  really
successful orthodontist's  waiting room  in the  year 2004.  And guess
what . . . I got to sit in the Bean Bag Chairs!"

An hour later we were all  back at work, when apropos of  nothing, Bug
said, "Ahem," called our attention,  and announced that he's gay.  How
random!

"I've been 'inning' myself for too long," he said, "and now it's  time
to  out myself.  It's something  you'll all  have to  deal with,  but
believe me, I've been dealing with it a lot longer than you."

It never even  entered our heads  to think Bug  was anything except  a
sexually  frustrated,  bitter  crank,  which  is  not  unusual  up  at
Microsoft, or in tech in general.  I think we all felt guilty  because
we don't think about Bug enough, and he does work hard, and his  ideas
really are good. But we're just  so used to him being cranky  it never
occurred to us he had an interior life, too.

I asked him, "But what about the Elle MacPherson shrine, Bug?"

"Replaced. Marky Mark for the time being, but he's only a phase."

"Oh, Bug . . ." said Karla, "how long have you been deciding this?"

"Always."

"Why now?", I asked. "So late."

"Because now is when we all  explode. We're like those seeds you  used
to  plant on  top of  sterile goop  in petri  dishes in  third grade,
waiting  to  sprout or  explode.  Susan's exploding.  Todd's  going to
explode.  Karla's germinating  gently. Michael's  altering, too.  It's
like we're all  seeds just waiting  to grow into  trees or orchids  or
houseplants. You  never know.  It was  too sterile  up north. I didn't
sprout. Aren't you curious to know what you really are, Dan?"

I thought about it. It's not really something you think about.

"Now I can be me - I think,"  Bug said. "This is not easy for me.  Let
me repeat that - this is not easy for me."

"Does this mean you'll start dressing better? " asked Ethan.

"Yes, Ethan. Probably."

So that was that.

Maybe he'll be less cranky now.  Karla and Susan said they were  proud
of Bug. I  guess it did  take guts. He's  a late bloomer  - that's for
sure. And me? Am I curious to know  what I really am? Or am I just  so
grateful  to not  be a  full-scale, zero-life  loser that  it doesn't
matter?

* * *

Bean bag chairs: how odd it is that they're still . . . I don't know .
. . a part of the world.

* * *

Dad signed up for  a night course in  C++. He's going to  make himself
relevant.

* * *

Susan's sister  sent her  a bag  of pot  via FedEx.  She wrapped it in
magazine scent strips to foil FedEx dope dogs. What a good way to make
those things do something useful.

* * *

Bug's right. We are all starting to unravel. Or sprout. Or whatever. I
remember back in  grade school, VCR  documentaries on embryology,  and
the way all mammals  look the same up  until a certain point  in their
embryological development,  and then  they start  to differentiate and
become what they're going to become. I think we're at that point now.


SUNDAY


My sense  of time  perception has  gone all  screwy. Sundays always do
that to  me. One  day is  so much  like every  other day here, and yet
every day  is somehow  different. I  designed a  little program that I
click into every  time I get  an interruption -  like a phone  call or
someone asks me a question - or I have to change a tape in my Walkman.
My average time between interruptions is 12.5 minutes. Perhaps this is
part of my time schism.

I mentioned these interruptions to Todd who said, "I'm still doing 18
hour  days like  up at  Microsoft, except  instead of  doing just  one
thing,  I'm doing  a hundred  different things  - my  job is  so much
better. More diversity. It's the diversity of interruptions . . . time
becomes 'initiative driven' as opposed to passive."

He then added  that in Christian  eschatology ("the study  of the Last
Things") it is always made very clear that time and the world both end
simultaneously, that there is no real difference between the two.

Then  he  panicked, worrying  that  he was  doomed  to turn  into  his
parents, and roared off  to the gym. He's  doing upper body today.  He
alternates upper and lower body. He never sleeps. That's how he  names
his days: Upperbodyday; Lowerbodyday; Absday; Latsday . . .  Sometimes
I admire his single-minded  drive to achieve muscular  perfection, and
sometimes I think he's a freak.

* * *

I read  about fishermen  off the  Gulf Coast  whose net,  dragging the
ocean floor, snagged a sunken galleon, and when the net was raised,  a
shower of coins fell on the ship's deck. Talk about a story to  appeal
to us here in the Valley!

* * *

Sent out my  Christmas cards today  - I went  to McDonald's and  got a
stack of "JOIN THE FAMILY"  job application forms and filled  them out
for everybody. The only remotely  personal question the form asks  is:
Sports? Activities?

Here's what I  wrote for everybody:  "Abe/Susan/Bug/Michael/etc . .  .
greatly enjoys repetitive tasks."

* * *

Geek party night: it's kind of like if we were in Hollywood and  going
to an "industry party."  That guy Susan met  from General Magic had  a
party up at his  place in the Los  Altos Hills. All day  at the office
Susan and Karla talked about what they're going to . . . wear. It  was
really un-Karla, but I'm glad  she's getting into her body  and taking
pride in it.

Susan's on the prowl,  so she wants to  look sexy, techie, "fun,"  and
serious all at once. Good luck. She complains to Karla that "I've  got
period boobs . . . they feel  like they're going to go on a  lactating
spree momentarily." She's so tell-it-like-it-is, but Susan . .

Karla said, "Well, that could work to your advantage if you wear  that
Betsy Johnson dress."

"Excellent idea!" Susan was motivated.

* * *

At geek parties, you can sort corporate drones from start-up drones by
dress and conversation. Karla and I stood next to two guys who work on
the Newton project  at Apple. They  talked with unflagging  enthusiasm
about  frequent  flyer  miles  for  about  45  minutes.  They  had   a
purchasable Valley hip. One guy had the mandatory LA Eyeworks  glasses
and a  nutty orange  vest worn  over baggy  jeans. The  other guy  had
Armani glasses and  a full Calvin  Klein ensemble, but  not a matching
ensemble, mind you  - "thrown together"  in "that expensive  way." You
can't help  but be  conscious here  of how  much everything costs, and
where it comes from.

Newton Guy One: I'm trying to make United Premiere Executive 100K. Are
you 100K yet?

NG  2: Oh,  yeah, right  after Hanover  this fall.  And you'll  never
believe this -  I was late  for a flight  the other day,  and when the
woman at  the United  counter pulled  up my  record, I  looked at  the
monitor and my name was surrounded by DOLLAR SIGNS. How subtextual.

NG 1: Wow, great! (Obviously genuinely impressed) I think I might make
it if  they let  me fly  United to  Japan the  next two times. Fucking
Apple Travel. I now have frequent flyer miles on Alitalia,  Northwest,
JAL, Lufthansa, USAir, Continental, American, and British Air. I  wish
we flew Virgin Air . . . that would be the coolest.

NG 2: I like the toiletries case from British Air.

NG 1: They used to be cooler .  . . all the stuff used to be  from the
Body Shop. But Virgin  Air rules because you  get your own video  game
monitor and you can play SEGA Games with other passengers.

NG 2: All over the plane? Or just business class?

NG 1: I don't know. Business class only, I think. I guess it would  be
cooler if you could play with the 13-year old kids back in coach . . .
SEGA should send group testers on flights and do market research  that
way! (Titters.)

Karla  and  I looked  at  each other  and  rolled our  eyes,  but were
impressed. APPLE! NEWTON! JAL FIRST CLASS! I don't have frequent flyer
miles on any airline.

Loser.


MONDAY


Anatole's Lexus has  a vertical slot  in its dashboard.  It's a coffee
cup holder that pops out and  does this flip-flip-flip origami thing  
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh - and becomes horizontal.

Karla and I went out around sunset and had coffees and sat in the car.
This was the highlight of the day, so you can imagine how dull the day
was.

* * *

Stocking stuffers: I bought these red "panic buttons" at Weird  Stuff,
the  computer  surplus  store  across from  Fry's  on  Kern  Street in
Sunnyvale. It's a fake IBM button with adhesive tape on the back  that
you're supposed  to tape  on to  your board  and push  whenever you're
feeling "wacky."

I felt really sad for the panic buttons, because panic seems like such
an outdated, corny reaction to all of the change in the world. I  mean
if  you have  to be  negative, there's  a reasonable  enough menu  of
options available - disengagement - atomization - torpor - but  panic?
Corrrrrrny.

* * *

I  mentioned  to  Abe  about  my  lessons  in  shiatsu  and  the weird
relationship  people in  tech firms  can have  with their  bodies. He
replied:

I know  what you  mean about  bodeis. At  Microsoft you pretend bodies
dont' exist . . . BRAINS  are what matter. You're right, at  Microsoft
bodies  get  down  played to  near  invisibilty  with unsensual  Tommy
Hilfiger geekwear, or are genericized with items form the GAP so  that
employees morph  themelfves into  those international  symbols for MAN
and WOMAN you see at airports.

* * *

Susan got a job offer from General Magic - that guy she chatted up  at
the Halloween party recommended  her - and Todd  got a job offer  from
Spectrum HoloByte. At first I couldn't  imagine why - then he told  us
that someone at the gym  must have recommended him. It's  occupational
cannibalism here. Both offers are  tempting. But Susan's got too  much
money stoked into the Oop! fire  to leave, and Todd's simply too  into
it. But it's nice to know  that if Oop! flushes the toilet,  there's a
Plan B ready.

Oop! isn't about work. It's about all of us staying together.


TUESDAY


We ate lunch in  Chinatown up in SF  only today, and there  were these
paper birds strung from the ceiling and this little kid who wanted  to
touch the birds and his father  lifted him up to touch them.  I didn't
realize, but  I was  staring at  the whole  thing the  whole time, and
zoned out of the conversation, and then I realized Karla was  watching
me.

* * *

Time time time. It's such a current subject. It's like money - if  you
don't have it, you think about it too much.

Karla's  been  thinking  about  time,  too.  Tonight  during   shiatsu
training, with me flat  on my stomach, my  back and sides being  poked
and pummeled, her voice, disconnected from her body, informed me  that
in general, "One's perception of time's flow is directly linked to the
number of connections one has to the outer world. Technology increases
the number  of connections,  thus it  alters the  perception of having
'experienced' time.

"It's a bell-curve relationship. There's actually an optimum point  at
which the amount of technology one owns extends the amount of time one
perceives or experiences.

"It's as  if your  brain holds  a tiny,  cashew-shaped thalamus  going
tick-tick-tick while it meters out your time dosage for you. There's a
technological equilibrium point, after which, it's all downhill."

* * *

Abe e-mailed a response to my time stuff:

Once you've used your brain flat-out, you can't go into the SLOW mode.
You can't drive an Infinite J-30 and then get downgraded to an Daewoo.
Brains don't work that way.


WEDNESDAY


This  morning  Dad   was  singing  "Road   to  Nowhere."  Michael   is
reprogramming my father. I  have to figure out  a way of dealing  with
this.

* * *

Whenever Anatole gets too European and insufferable - complaining  too
much, basically  - we  say to  him, "Hey,  Anatole, your  turtleneck's
showing." He doesn't get this particular joke. "But I am not wearing a
turtleneck . . ."

Anatole told us  this really great  thing, how at  Apple they used  to
have a thing called RumorMonger that allowed employees to  anonymously
input up  to one  hundred ASCII  characters worth  of gossip  into the
system.  So Todd  hacked together  a quick  in-house version  for our
network,  called  Rumor-Meister.  It got  way  out  of control  almost
immediately:

1) SUSAN SHOPS AT TARGET BUT PUTS HER STUFF IN NORDSTROM BAGS

2) DANIEL SELLS HIS USED BOXERS VIA MAIL ORDER . . . $5.00 PER DAY  OF
WEAR

3) BUG SWEATS TO THE OLDIES

4) DAN . . . THOSE DOCKERS . . . HIP!

5) TODD HAS SAGGY NIPPLES  FROM TOO MUCH BODY BUILDING  THEY'RE CALLED
'BITCH TITS'

5) TODD  WEARZ DEPENDS  WHEN HE  BENCH PRESSES  BECUZ UTHERWIZE  HE'LL
EVACUATE HIS BOWELS ON THE BENCH

7) KARLA PAID TO SEE "THE BODY GUARD"

8) BUG LAUGHS AT GARFIELD CARTOONS

9) KARLA CAN'T ACCESSORIZE

10) SUSAN HAS COMBINATION SKIN

11) TODD SMOKES 'MORE' CIGARETTES

12) I CAN HEAR KARLA'S COLOSTOMY BAG SLOSHING

13) ETHAN'S FERRARI IS A KIT CAR

14) ETHAN BUYS TIRES AT SEARS

15) BUG LOVES BARNEY

16) KARLA THINKS SHE'S A SUMMER BUT SHE'S REALLY A FALL

17) BUG HAS 2 RAFFI CASSETTES

18) DAN HAS A YANNI CD IN HIS CAR

19) ETHAN'S VISA LIMIT IS $3,000

20)  SUZAN'Z  BOYCRAZY  SUZAN'Z  BOYCRAZY  SUZAN'Z  BOYCRAZY   SUZAN'Z
BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY

21) DAN: LISTERINE KILLS GERMS THAT CAN CAUSE BAD BREATH

22) DAN STILL LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER

23) BUG SHOPS AT CHESS KING

24) MICHAEL'S SHIRT SMELL LIKE GERBIL PEE

Todd quickly removed the program from the system.

* * *

Ethan  had a  time crisis.  "I look  at my  Daytimer and  see: CES  in
January, COMDEX in May, Tim's wedding in July, etc., and I realize the
whole year is over before it's even begun. What's the point of it all?
It's all of it so predictable."

* * *

Mom won a  swim meet this  afternoon, so we  dug out the  nickels from
under  the  seat  cushions  and  went  out  for  a  low-fat  dinner to
celebrate. She's so fit these days.

* * *

I  was  driving down  from  the 280,  down  Peter Coutts  Road,  up by
Systemix, Wall Data, IBM, Hewlett Packard, and the Wall Street Journal
printing plant  - up  where Dad  used to  work before  he was rendered
obsolete - and who should I  see taking a stroll together but  Dad and
Michael!  They  were lost  in  discussion, their  arms  donnishly held
behind their backs.

I pulled the  car into a  side street and  ran out to  join them. Upon
hearing  me  yell  their  names,  they  turned  around, absentmindedly
interrupted, utterly  unfazed at  seeing me.  I asked  what they  were
doing and Dad said, "Oh, you know - just taking a stroll past the  old
hunting grounds" (IBM).

Cars hummed by. A tech  firm's lawn sprinkler spritzed. I  didn't know
what to say, surrounded by all these blank buildings with  glassed-out
windows, these buildings  where they make  the machines that  make the
machines that make the machines.

I began walking up the hill with them and shortly we were in front  of
IBM.  I  felt humiliated  for  my father,  because  surely there'd  be
employees  behind  the reflecto  windows  saying, "Oh  look,  it's Mr.
Underhill stalking us. He must have really lost it."

But Dad seemed unfazed. I said,  "Dad, how can you even look  at those
people?"

He  replied,  "You  know,  Daniel,  I  have  noticed  that  people are
generally quite thrilled to have change enter their lives -  disasters
are weathered by people with  a sturdiness that is often  unlike their
day-to-day personality."

Michael piped  in, "Just  think of  the Mississippi  River floods. All
those people  having barbecues  up on  their roofs,  waving to the CNN
helicopters - having a grand old time."

"Precisely,"  said  Dad. "I've  realized  that people  most  dread the
thought of actually initiating change in their lives and we old people
are obviously the worst. It's hard coping with chaos and diversity. We
old folks mistake  the current deluge  of information, diversity,  and
chaos as the 'End of History.' But maybe it's actually the Beginning."

This sounded like Michael-style words coming out of my father's mouth.
Brainwashed!

He continued. "Old people have more or less dropped out of the process
of  creating old-fashioned-style  history. We've  been pushed  to the
side,  and nobody's  pointed out  to us  what we,  the newly  obsolete
humans, are supposed to do."

"The only thing that is immune  to change is our desire for  meaning,"
added Michael, to my overweening annoyance.

We scurried across the street during a lull in the Lexuses, and  began
walking down the hill. "Don't ask  me to explain this eight-jobs-in-a
lifetime reality we now inhabit. I could barely deal with the one-job
in-a-lifetime world," Dad said.

The  sun  was golden  -  birds swung  in  the sky.  Cars  purred at  a
stoplight. Dad  looked so  relaxed and  happy. "I  always assumed that
history was created by think  tanks, the DOE and the  RAND Corporation
of Santa Monica, California. I assumed that history was something that
happened to  other people  - out  there. I  never thought  history was
something my kid built in the basement. It's a shock."

I told him about the new word I'd learned, deletia, and Dad laughed.

"That's me!"

We were soon down  at El Camino Real.  I had to go  back to my car.  I
asked, "Are you guys driving? You need a ride anywhere?"

"We'll walk," said Dad. "But thanks."

"See you back in the Habitrail," said Michael.

Yeah. Right.

* * *

Karla was outside the house watering the herb garden with a can when I
drove up. I told Karla that  it was really unChristmassy of me,  but I
wanted to kill Michael.

"Michael? What on earth for?"

"He's . . ."

"Yes?"

"He's stealing my father."

"Don't be silly, Dan. It's in your head."

"Dad never talks to me. He's  always with Michael. Shit, I don't  even
know what he does with  Michael. They could be selling  bomb implosion
devices to the Kazakhs for all I know."

"Maybe they've become life-partners," said Karla.

"What?"

"It's  a joke,  Dan. Calm  down. Get  a grip  on yourself.  Listen to
yourself. First of  all, Michael couldn't  shoplift a Nestle's  Crunch
bar,  let  alone a  parental  unit. He's  not  the type.  Has  it ever
occurred to you they might simply be friends?"

"He knows about Jed. He's trying to be Jed. And I can't compete."

"This is nonsense."

"Didn't I say that about you and your family?"

"But that's different."

"How?"

"Because .. . because it is."

"Good logic, Karla."

She came up to  me. "Feel yourself -  you're lucky you didn't  get the
killer flu.  Your muscles  are as  rigid as  a crowbar.  You're making
yourself sick thinking like  this. Come on -  I'll do your back.  I'll
talk you down from this."

As she plucked the  knots from out of  my body, removed the  abandoned
refrigerators  and couches  and sacks  of garbage  from underneath  my
skin, she talked in  the way she does.  She told me, "Bodies  are like
diskettes with tags. You click on to them and you can see the size and
type  of file  immediately. On  people, this  labeling occurs  on the
face."

Prod, prod, rub, poke.

"If you know a lot about the world, that knowledge makes itself  plain
on your face. At  first this can be  a frightening thing to  know, but
you get used to it. Sometimes it can be off-putting. But I think it is
only off-putting to  people who are  worried that they  themselves are
learning too much  too quickly. Knowing  too much about  the world can
make you  unloving -  and maybe  unlovable. And  your father's face is
different now. He seems like a new man - different than when he  first
drove up to  the old house  in Redmond. However  he may have  changed,
it's for the better. So don't lose sight of that."

Grudgingly: "All right."

If it weren't for Karla, sometimes I think I'd just implode.


FRIDAY, December 24,1993


Software fun: Work crawled to a standstill today as Bug shared anagram
software that  spits out  all the  combinations of  words you can make
with your  name. Michael  was mad,  because we  lost several  combined
people-hours doing it. Everyone's faxing and e-mailing their relatives
and friends  their name-as-anagram  for Christmas  tomorrow. It's  the
low-budget gift-giving solution.

Everybody's also downloading shareware and scuttling about the  valley
cobbling together  melanges of  bootleg software  programs to  give as
presents. We're all broke!

* * *

It seems everybody's trying to find a word that expresses mare bigness
than the mere word "supermodel" - hyper model - gigamodel - negamodel.
Michael suggested  that our  inability to  come up  with a word bigger
than  supermodel  reflects our  inability  to deal  with  the crushing
weight of history we've created for ourselves as a species.

* * *

We got off work early (7:00) to  shop, but we all came back in  around
10:00 and started working again, until around 1:00. Slaves, or what?

Around midnight, December 25, Susan grunted, "Uhhh, Merry  Christmas."
We all reciprocated, and then went back to work.


Christmas Day, 1993


We sat inside and opened  prezzies over coffee. Outside it  was Richie
Cunningham weather - like from Happy Days when Ralph Malph and  Potsie
come over  and ding  the doorbell,  and they're  wearing their varsity
coats and they say, "Hello, Mrs. C." and the weather outside is . .  .
simply weather.

But  where  is  everybody's family?  Why  isn't  everybody with  their
families! Nobody went home. Bug still can't face his parents in Idaho;
Susan either (her mother is in Schaumberg, Illinois; her father is  in
Irvine, down south);  Karla - not  likely. Only Anatole  went to visit
his parents, and then only because they're three hours north in  Santa
Rosa.

* * *

Anyway,  we're  all so  broke  this year  that  we agreed  not  to buy
anything expensive for  anyone, and it  was fun. Gag  gifts. Christmas
really brings out the geek in tech people:

	• From Todd to Bug: a brown Wackenhut security baseball cap

	• From Karla to me: the IBM PC version of The $100,000 Pyramid

	• From me to  Karla: a Hewlett-Packard calculator  with jewels
	for buttons

	• From  Ethan to  all of  us: CandyCaller  toy cellular  phone
	filled with candies

	• From Bug in all of our stockings: Dream Whip, nondairy  whip
	topping

	•  From  me to  Karla:  a Play-Doh  fun  factory insect-shaped
	insect extruding device ("Look-softer, less crumbly Play-Doh,"
	she squealed.)

	• From various people to  various people: Ren & Stimpy  screen
	savers  ("Screensavers are  the macrame  of the  '90s," Susan
	boldly exclaimed.)

	•  From Susan  to all  of us:  HANDMADE Martha-Stewart-y  gift
	baskets,  which  made us  all  feel cheap.  Michael  asked her
	outright: "Susan, where did you find the discretionary time to
	assemble these?" She looked  guilty, and then told  Michael to
	piss off, and it was funny. Michael whispered to me: "Handmade
	presents are scary because they reveal that you have too  much
	free time."

* * *

For some  reason, everyone  gave Susan  premoistened towelette-related
products. It's one  of those jokes  that went out  of control the  way
sometimes  things  go  out  of  control  for  no  obvious  reason.   A
spontaneous nonlinear event. She received:

	• 124 klear screen™  premoistened towelettes, "with love  from
	Dan and Karla" (I also mailed Abe a bottle of Spray-N-Clean so
	he can remove the nasal encrustations on his Mac screens)

	• Celeste® sam-com  3205 premoistened towelettes  specifically
	targeted for consumer electronics mouthpieces - from Ethan. ("
	'Cleans and freshens communications equipment.' I stole a  wad
	of them from business class on United last year.")

	•  "Pocket Wetty"  brand premoistened  towelettes from  Japan,
	made by Wakodo KK. (¥ 145, thank you, Anatole.)

* * *

Everybody gave Mom  a rock for  Christmas and she  said they were  the
best presents  she's ever  had. Everybody  tried to  give her a really
good rock. It's  so weird -  everyone genuinely tried  to find a  cool
rock.

Todd made a joke about  Charlie Brown trick-or-treating and getting  a
rock in his bag, and saying, "I got a rock," but Mom didn't catch  the
media reference.

* * *

Needless to say, there was much merchandise from Fry's:

	• From me to Dad:  a wall calendar with pictures  of different
	model train sets for every month

	• From  Abe to  Susan: Copy  of Quicken,  the oddly  religious
	personal/financial  software program  that has  no option  for
	roommates  or   other  non-Cold   War  era   sex/space-sharing
	alliances.

	• From Susan to Todd: SIMMs (Macintosh memory modules:  Single
	Inline Memory Modules)

	• From everyone to everyone: Video and audio cables

	• From  Michael to  Dad: an  old-fashioned red  Craftsman tool
	chest

	•  From Santa  to all  of us  in our  stockings: diet  Cokes,
	Hostess products, blank video tapes, and batteries!

* * *

Of course: minivan-loads of Star Trekiana -

	• three British import CDs of William Shatner karaokeing  "Mr.
	Tamborine Man" (famous career  mistake #487) as well  as "Lucy
	in the Sky with Diamonds"

	• Starlog magazine subscriptions

	•  bootleg  galley  proofs  of  the  upcoming  Gene Rodenberry
	biography

	• Next Generation mouse pads

	• photo glossies of Data, Riker, Deanna Troi, and Wesley  from
	Star Trek: The Next Generation

	• a plastic  Starship Enterprise Control  Center as well  as a
	Franklin Mint Starship Enterprise replica

	• a Deep Space Nine yo-yo, but no one has really clicked  into
	Deep  Space Nine  yet, so  it wasn't  popular and  sat on  the
	coffee table

* * *

Overheard: "It got rated four-and-a-half mice by MacUser!"

* * *

Mom made a turkey for dinner, and wore pearls and hammed it up as a TV
mom. We  all ate  together in  the "formal"  dining room. Christmas is
traditionally a bigger deal in our house, but we all see each other so
much, it  was no  big deal  being together.  We talked  about Macs and
product.

In the background the TV set was playing a Wheel of Fortune rerun, and
was making a ding-ding-ding sound. Mom asked, "What's that noise," and
Susan said, "Someone just bought a vowel."

Then the  BIG surprise  was that  ABE appeared!  Like something from a
Disney movie, right in  the middle of dinner,  in a white rental  car,
laden with  Sony products,  bottles o'  booze, and  a big  box with  a
spectacular bow  on top  for Bug  - a  paper shredder  from a  surplus
store. Bug was positively  sniffling with gratitude ("It's  the nicest
present anybody's ever given me!") He spent the rest of the  afternoon
wrapping newspapers and lighting flash bombs of the shredded  remnants
in the fireplace, ridding the Habitrail of several months and  stratum
of bedding material, and it looked quite presentable at the end of it.

After dinner we forced Abe into  the van and drove him to  7-Eleven to
buy him more Christmas presents, so he ended up with copies of People,
microwaved  cheeseburgers,  Reese's  Pieces, and  string  as  gifts. I
realized  how  much  I  liked  Abe, but  I  wonder  if  I'd  ever have
recognized that if I had kept  living in the group house. I  think our
e-mail  correspondence  has  given us  an  intimacy  that face-to-face
contact never would have. Irony!

* * *

I almost made Dad a cardboard sign saying, "will manage for food"  but
then I felt like  a bad, bad son,  and then, like clockwork,  I got to
feeling depressed  for fifty  something's, imagining  them standing at
the corner of El Camino Real  and Rengstorff Avenue holding up such  a
sign.  And  I  can't believe  Michael  got  Dad a  nice  tool  kit for
Christmas. How fucking thoughtful.


SUNDAY

December 26,1993


All family'ed out.

Karla and I  drove down the  hill to Syntex,  birthplace of the  birth
control pill, a little bit below Mom and Dad's house, down on Hillview
Avenue - a 1970s Utopian, Andromeda Strainishly empty tech complex. We
sat in the grass amphitheater  by the leafless birch trees,  looked at
the sculptures from the sculpture garden, walked over the walkways and
pretended  we were  Susan Dey  and Bobby  Sherman on  a date,  falling
through a  dark cultural  warp, and  landing inside  the technological
dream  that underwrote  the free-wheelin',  swingfest TV-lifestyle  of
that era.

Syntex was the first corporation to invent the "workplace as  campus."
Before California high-tech parks, the most a corporation ever did for
an employee was maybe supply a house, maybe a car, maybe a doctor, and
maybe a place to buy  groceries. Beginning in the 1970s,  corporations
began supplying showers  for people who  jogged during lunch  hour and
sculptures lo soothe the working soul - proactive humanism - the first
full-scale integration of the corporate realm into the private. In the
1980s, corporate  integration punctured  the next  realm of  corporate
life invasion at "campuses" like  Microsoft and Apple - with  the next
level of  intrusion being  that the  borderline between  work and life
blurred to the point of unrecognizability.

Give  us your  entire life  or we  won't allow  you to  work on  cool
projects.

In  the 1990s,  corporations don't  even hire  people anymore.  People
become their own corporations. It was inevitable.

* * *

Karla and I felt  like the last couple  on earth, walking through  the
emptiness. We felt like Adam and Eve.

I told Karla that Ethan doesn't think biotech is such a hot investment
because  it's "too  9-to-5," and  the workers  follow non-techie  time
schedules, and their parking lots NEVER have cars in them on  Sundays.
Actually, to this day,  Ethan is still trying  to find a biotech  firm
with Sunday workers. He says that once he finds one, he'll be able  to
invest the farm, lie back, and retire. If only Ethan had something  to
invest!

Karla  picked some  iceplant flowers,  the semiofficial  plant of  the
high-tech world because it  stabilizes hillsides so quickly.  She said
it's thornlessness makes it "the Play-Doh" version of cactus.

We were being  very freestyle. We  discussed whether we  should go try
and  crash into  the research  institute off  the 280  where Koko  the
gorilla  lives  with  her  kitten.  Karla  said  that  the transdermal
nicotine patch  was invented  just over  the hill,  on Page Mill Road,
near  the Interval  Research Corporation  headquarters. History!  Then
Karla suggested we visit Interval Research's campus and see what  it's
like: "If Syntex was the 1970s and Apple was the 1980s, then  Interval
is the 1990s."

* * *

Interval Research's  headquarters were  like a  middle-class honeymoon
hotel in Maui circa 1976,  and slightly gone to seed,  with Gilligan's
Island-style  lagoonlets  between the  buildings  and a  lobby  with a
vaguely   medical/dental,    is-this-where-I-drop-off-my-urine-sample?
feel.

And (important) there were CARS in the parking lot, even on the Sunday
after Christmas.

Karla  said she  knew this  girl Laura  who worked  there, and  so we
checked, and she was there.  We rapped on her window,  overlooking the
central courtyard's lagoon, and she looked up and came out and let  us
in. Laura has an IQ of 800, just like Karla. She invited us inside and
we played pool  at their pool  table. The pool  table is to  the 1990s
what PARC's bean bag chairs were to the 1970s.

Interval Research is so weird because nobody knows for sure what it is
they really do there. They  have stealth cachet. Laura does  something
on neural nets.

People  project onto  Interval's blankness  either their  paranoia or
their hope. People always get emotional when you mention it.  Interval
was the  think tank-slash-company  Paul Allen  from Microsoft  started
when he learned he had  something terminal. His disease left  after he
founded it.

Interval's mandate is solely to generate intellectual properties,  not
to develop products - a heresy  in Silicon Valley. If an idea  is good
enough, the unwritten concept is  that there's an in-house VC  dude in
the form of Paul Allen to foot the bill. No wonder people get  jealous
- imagine not having to struggle for start-up money - the intellectual
freedom!

Abe is against the lack  of gung-ho-ishness in pure research.  He says
Interval is an intellectual Watership Down. We have to remind him that
since the government has pulled out of Big Science, someone has to  do
pure theoretical research. He grudgingly agrees.

Laura used to be at Apple's Advanced Technology Group, but left a year
ago. When she started at Apple, they had a 3-to 7-year yield time  for
theoretical research; a  project had to  pay for itself  from three to
seven  years after  its start.  In the  early 1990s,  the yield  time
dropped to one  year - "Not  one-point-oh enough," said  Laura. "Here,
it's 5- to 10-years' yield time. That's good."

We asked her what the  difference was between Apple and  Interval, and
she said that Apple tried to change the world while Interval tries  to
affect the  world. "We  have a  touchie-feelie reputation,"  she said,
"probably because of Brenda Laurel's work in gender and  intelligence,
but believe me, it's  heaven to be able  to do pure math,  theoretical
software, or watch Ricki Lake if you need to." (I should add, Laura is
a real pool  shark. I pointed  this out and  she said, "Oh,  it's only
math.") Brenda Laurel is the  woman responsible for research into  how
women interact with math. She's the Anti-Barbie.

"Staff here are a bit older,  too," she said, "and people mostly  only
get in via  recommendation. There's no  snatch-the-pebble-from-my-hand
koan routine for prospective employees. And there's no reporting tree.
It's post-grad school, sort of. Everybody's supposed to be equal, too,
but of course you  have sub-equal and super-equal  personalities. They
fall  into planet/moon  relationships soon  enough. But  for the  most
part, we're all start-up types, ex-academic and ex-corporate types who
want to keep the one-point-oh flame alive."

Laura cleaned up  at pool. I  felt goofy losing,  the way you  do with
pool.  Pool is  like rollerblading:  you have  to pretend  you're the
cooly-wooliest person on earth, while you're quietly cringing inside.

Other teenies came  and went, and  it felt refreshingly  like a normal
workday. Karla promised  to fix Laura  up with Anatole.  Laura used to
have a crush on  him back at Apple.  L'amour, I'amour. I was  a little
underwhelmed. I  guess I  was expecting  them to  be doing  Tesla Coil
experiments or building jets out  of Mylar. Or 3,000-lb. onions  being
carried  out  of  the  parking  lot  with  machine-gun  totin'  guards
alongside the truck.

I said that since Anatole's friends  were going to help us alpha  test
Oop!, maybe we could get her  closer to Anatole if she wanted  to help
test. She agreed immediately. Talk  about Tom Sawyer painting a  fence
white!

* * *

When we got home,  Mom and Dad were  just back from a  bike ride along
the Foothills Expressway.  They were sweating,  and Misty was  licking
them in  pursuit of  sodium. After  this, they  watched Martha Stewart
tapes  and  felt  guilty  for  not  orchestrating  their  lives   more
glamorously.

Bug popped by en route to a  party in San Jose. We told him  about our
trip to  Interval and  he told  us that  the replacement  paradigm for
Graphic User Interface was going to emerge from there, and that PARC's
1970s desktop  metaphor  work  had become  the  "intellectual  avocado
colored appliance of the computer industry."

"My, how fickle are our allegiances," said Karla.

"Oh come on, Bug," I said, "can't you be even a bit bitter aboat  PARC
anymore?"

"I can foam  about PARC forever,"  said Bug, "or  I can groove  on the
next PARC-like think tank. I choose to groove. Where's your mom,  Dan?
I brought her a rock she might like."

Bug is spending part  of his off-time developing  a traffic-monitoring
routine for offices that allows office workers to minimize the  number
of times they bump into each other in the hallway. He was inspired  by
that cartoon character, Dilbert, who  freaks out every time he  has to
walk down a hall with somebody else. "I mean, what's a person supposed
to say, Kar? How often can a person regenerate fresh and witty  banter
each  and  every time  they  bump into  a  person? Oohhh  .  . .  nice
carpeting. Oohhh . . . what an attractive Honeywell thermostat control
switch next to the photocopier. Human beings weren't designed to  bump
into each other in  hallways. I'm providing a  valuable postindustrial
service.  Microsoft  would have  been  heaven if  my  system had  been
operative and in place."


SATURDAY

New Year's Day, 1994


Abe left for SFO Airport and then we all went for a drive in the  Carp
- Karla, Ethan, Todd, Bug, and I.

We drove past the home of Thomas Watson Jr., 99 Notre Dame Avenue, San
Jose, California. Watson steered IBM  into the computer age -  and was
made prez  of the  company in  1952. In  1953 he  developed the  first
commercial storage device for computers. He died on a New Year's Eve.

* * *

On the radio we heard that  Bill got married, on Lanai in  Hawaii, and
we all screamed so loudly that the Carp nearly went off the road.  And
apparently Alice Cooper was there. So to celebrate we played old Alice
Cooper  tapes  and  purchased  a "Joey  Heatherton"  fondue  kit  in a
secondhand  store and  later on  boxed it  up to  mail to  Microsoft.
They'll probably think it's a bomb.

"Ooh, Bill - please, please feed me another bite of hot, bubbly cheese
cube," Susan whispered in a little girl voice in the backseat.

"I feel as though we're  in a witness relocation program,"  said Todd.
"You can leave Bill, but Bill will never leave you."

* * *

We also went  to "The Garage,"  the Tech Museum  of Innovation in  San
Jose. We were  expecting a Pirates  of the Caribbean  kind of exhibit,
with bioanimatronic  Deadheads hacking  an Altair  inside a re-created
1976 Sunnyvale Garage.

Instead there  was a  mock clean  room, a  Silicon Graphics 3D protein
simulator, and a chromosome map in the biotechnology section:

Goiter: bottom of gene pair no. 8

Epilepsy: lower half of gene pair 20

Red hair color: middle of pair 4

Albinism: lower 11th pair

Karla said that a quarter of all  pure white cats are deaf - that  the
trait of whiteness and the  trait for deafness are entwined  together,
so that you can't have one without a possibility of the other.

This segued into a discussion  of algorithm breeding that lasted  well
until we arrived in Berkeley where we went to a yuppie-style party  at
a college friend of Karla's. Ethan drank too much and told loud jokes,
and the yuppies weren't  happy. We had to  take him into the  backyard
and  cool  him off.  He  said, "What's  a  bar bill  but  a surtax  on
reality." We're not sure if he has a drinking problem.

The music was Herb Alpert and  Brazil 66. It could easily be  your own
parents' party, circa Apollo 9.  Later, even though we all  agreed not
to, we ended up surrounding a

Mac and oohing and aahing over a too-tantalizing piece of shareware.

* * *

Anecdote: We talked with Pablo and Christine, Karla's "we-have-a-life"
friends who were having the party. I asked them, "Are you married?"

"Well," said Pablo, "we  went down to Thailand  and a guy in  a yellow
silk robe waved his hands around  our bodies and . . ."  Pablo paused.
"You know, I suppose we don't really know if we're married or not."

"It was sort of Mick-and-Jerry," said Christine.

Later on,  Pablo was  telling this  deep intimate  story about  how he
found religion in  the hinterlands of  Thailand, and just  at the most
intense, quietest moment  in the storytelling,  Ethan walked into  the
kitchen, overheard a  snatch of conversation,  and said, "Thailand?  I
love Thailand! I'm dying to build a chain of resorts all over Thailand
and Bali, kind of like Club Meds but a little more nineties. I'm gonna
call them 'Club  Zens,' right? 'Cause  of the Buddhism  thing. There's
all kinds of statues and monuments  over there I could use to  make it
look  authentic -  like you're  in a  monastery, but  with booze  and
bikinis. Now that's nirvana! As soon as I make my next million . .."

It was a very "Ethan" moment.

* * *

Oh - at the Museum in San  Jose there was a pile of this  stuff called
aerogel - solid, yet almost entirely air. It seemed like thoughts made
solid. It was so lovely.

* * *

Another "Oh" - Susan complains  that Bug stays up all  night shredding
paper and the whirring of the rotors is driving her nuts.

* * *

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

Me: to penetrate the Apple complex

Karla: undisclosed (doesn't want to jinx)

Ethan: to slow down time

Todd:  visit  junkyards  more  often, to  bench  420,  and  to have  a
relationship Susan: to hack into the DMV and to have a relationship

Bug: to overhaul his image and to have a relationship

* * *

680X0

a burning Lego Los Angeles

880 Nimitz Freeway

Control and the feeling of mastery

moon

Premium Saltine crackers

I Robot

The Apollo  rocket designers  and the  NASA engineers  of Houston  and
Sunnyvale grew up in the 1930s  and 1940s dreaming of Buck Rogers  and
the exoterrestrial meanderings of Amazing Stories. When this aerospace
generation grew old enough, they chose to make those dreams in metal.


TUESDAY

January 4,1994


Woke up sick this morning - finally got the flu. I thought it might be
a hangover,  but no.  In spite  of the  fact that  I think I feel like
death-on-a-stick, I want to write down what happened today.

* * *

First, Michael  bounced through  the sliding  doors around  noon in  a
shiny happy mood, and invited us all out to see our (game show tone of
voice) .  . .  new office!  Ethan sold  his Ferrari  to do  the lease.
"Farewell 1980s!" he said. (He drives a 1987 Honda Civic now. "I  feel
like I'm in high school.")

Uncharacteristically brash, he yelled,  "Convoy! Everybody . .  . down
to our new office. You, too, Mrs. Underwood . . . we've been liberated
from the Habitrail."

We stuffed ourselves into two cars and drove through the  vine-covered
suburbs and carefully  mowed, Frisbee-free lawns  of Palo Alto's  tech
parks,  to  Hamilton  Street,  a  block  south  of  University  Street
downtown. And it was there that we learned what Dad has actually  been
doing all this time.

* * *

As Michael opened a second-floor oak  door, he said to me, in  a voice
intended to be heard by everybody, "I figured your father's talents as
a model railroader might have translatable applications into our world
here . . ."

The wet paint smelled like cucumbers and sour cream and made me a  bit
pukey, but the feeling passed  as I saw what lay  before us . . .  the
most sculptured environment I've ever seen - an entire world of Lego 
hundreds of 50 x 50-stud gray pads on the floors and on the walls, all
held  in place  with tiny  brass screws.  Onto these  pads were  built
skyscrapers and animals and mazes and Lego railroads, sticking out  of
the walls, rounding  corners, passing through  holes. The colors  were
shocking; Lego-pure. A skeleton lay  down beside a platoon of  robots;
cubic flowers grew beside boxcars loaded with nickels that rounded the
blue railroad bends. There was a Palo Alto City Hall - a '70s Wilshire
modernist box - and there was a 747 and a smoking pipe . . . and . . .
everything in  the world!  Pylons and  towers of  color, and  dogs and
chalets . . .

"I think your father should take a bow, don't you, Daniel?"

Dad, who was in the back tinkering with a castle, looked flustered but
proud,  and fidgeted  with a  stack of  two-stud yellow  bricks. This
universe he had built was  a Guggenheim and a Toys-R-Us  squished into
one. We were having  seizures, all of us.  Susan was livid. She  said,
"You spent my vested stock money on . . . Lego?" She was purple.

Ethan looked at me: "Michael's addiction."

I, too, was flubbered. In the magic of the moment I looked up into the
corner - and I caught Mom looking, too - at a small white house in the
far back  corner, sprouting  from a  wall, with  a little white picket
fence  around it,  the occupant  inside no  doubt surveying  all that
transpired beneath its windows,  and I said, "Oh,  Dad, this is -  the
most real thing I've ever seen."

* * *

And I wondered then,  how do we ever  know what beauty lies  inside of
people, and  the strange  ways this  world works  to lure  that beauty
outward?

* * *

What follows  I will  write only  because it's  what happened, and I'm
sick, and I  don't want to  lose it -  I might accidentally  erase the
memory. I want a backup.

What happened was that while  everyone was oohing and ahhing  over the
Lego sculptures (and staking out their new work spaces) the colors  in
front  of  my  eyes  began  to  swim,  and  everybody's  words stopped
connecting in my head,  and I had to  go down to the  street for fresh
air, and I wobbled out the door.

It was a hot sunny day -  oh California! - and I walked at  random and
ended up standing on  the blazing piazza of  the Palo Alto City  Hall,
baked in white  light from the  suntanning cement, the  civil servants
around me buzzing in all directions, efficiently heading off to lunch.
I heard cars go by.

My body was losing its ability  to regulate its temperature and I  was
going cold and hot, and I wasn't  sure if I was hungry or whether  the
virus  had deactivated  my stomach,  and I  felt like  my system  was
getting ready to shut down.

I sat  in this  heat and  light on  the low-slung  steps of  the hall,
feeling dizzy, and not quite knowing where I was, and then I  realized
there was somebody sitting  next to me, and  it was Dad. And  he said,
"You're not feeling very well, are you, son."

And I said, "Nnn . . . no."

And he said, "I was following you down the streets. I was right behind
you the whole time.  It's the flu, isn't  it? But it's more  than just
the flu."

I was silent.

"Right?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"I'm a young man, Daniel, but I'm stuck inside this old sack of bones.
I can't help it."

"Dad . . ."

"Let me  finish. And  so you  think I'm  old. You  think that  I don't
understand things. That I never notice what goes on around me - but  I
do notice. And I've noticed that I'm maybe too distant with you -  and
that maybe I don't spend enough time with you."

"FaceTime," I said, regretting my bad joke as the words slipped out.

"Yes. FaceTime."

Two secretaries walked by laughing at some joke they were telling, and
a yuppie guy with a stack of documents walked past us.

The inside of my head did a dip, like on a ride at Knott's Berry Farm.
I found  myself saying,  "Michael's not  Jed, Dad.  He just isn't. And
neither  am I.  And I  just can't  keep trying  to keep  up with  him.
Because no matter how hard I run, I'm never going to catch up."

"Oh, my boy . . ."

My head was between my legs at  this point, and I had to keep  my eyes
closed,  because the  light from  the piazza  was hurting  me, and  I
wondered  if this  was how  Ethan's eyes  felt on  his antidepressant
chemicals, and  then I  started thinking  of a  small plastic swimming
pool Jed and  I used to  play in when  we were babies,  and I think my
mind  was  misfiring. And  then  I felt  my  father's arms  around  my
shoulders, and I shivered, and he pulled me close to him.

I was  too sick,  and Dad's  words weren't  registering. "You and your
friends helped me once when I was  lost. The whole crew of you -  your
casual love and help - saved me at a time when no one else could  save
me.

And now I can help you. I was lost, Daniel. If it weren't for you  and
your friends, I would never have  found the green spaces or the  still
waters. My mind would not now be calm . . ."

But I don't remember what I said next. I have faint memories - my arms
touching the  warm cement  - of  a stop  sign -  of a sago palm branch
brushing  my cheek;  my father's  worried face  looking forward  right
above  my own;  the clouds  above his  head; birds  in the  trees; my
father's arms  beneath me;  depositing me  within the  Lego garden; my
mother  saying,  "Dear?" and  my  father's voice  saying,  "It's okay,
honey. He just needs to sleep for a long, long time."


5

TrekPolitiks


MONDAY

January 17,1994


An earthquake  hit Los  Angeles at  4:31 this  morning and  the images
began arriving via CNN right away.  Karla and I stayed home to  watch,
and when Ethan, a Simi Valley boy, heard about it on the radio driving
in from San Carlos, he ran right through our front yard's sprinkler to
watch our TV. (His own Cablevision bill remains unpaid.) Damage seemed
to be localized but extreme - the San Fernando Valley, Northridge, Van
Nuys, and parts of Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades.

"The freeways!" moaned Ethan. "My beloved freeways - Antelope  Valley,
ripped and  torn, the  405, rubble  - the  Santa Monica  freeway at La
Cienega - all collapsed."

We'd  never  seen  Ethan  cry.  At  the  sight  of  some  particularly
devastated overpass, he told me,  "I kissed my first date  beside that
off-ramp - we'd sit on the embankments and watch the cars go by."

Anyway,  it  really  did make  us  sad  to see  all  of  this glorious
infrastructure  in ruins,  like a  crippled giant.  We ate  breakfast,
leafed through the Handbook of Highway Engineering (1975), and watched
all the collapsed structures.

Mom made  us hot  chocolate before  she went  to the  library and then
dropped us off at the office on her way. Ethan was a mess all day.

* * *

Dad quit his night course in C++ because all of the kids in his  class
were seventeen and they just stared  at him and didn't think he  could
be a student because he was  too old. The students were saying  things
to each other like, "If he conies too close to you shout, 'You're  not
my father!' as loud as you can." Kids are so cruel.

So we're going to teach Dad C++ instead.

* * *

Random moment:  This afternoon  I was  in the  McDonald's on El Camino
Real near California Street and they  had this Lucite box with a  slot
on top  where people  put their  business cards.  It was  stuffed with
cards. Really stuffed.

But the weird thing was, I couldn't locate anything on the box  saying
what the cards were  to be used for.  So I guess it's  just this human
instinct to stick your business card  in a slot. Like you're going  to
win . . . what - a free orange drink machine for your birthday  party?
I saw a woman's card from Hewlett-Packard and a card from some guy  in
Mexico saying  "Graduate from  Stanford Graduate  School of Business."
Here's this Stanford graduate at McDonald's putting his card in a  box
at random. I just don't  understand people sometimes. Didn't he  learn
anything at Stanford?

* * *

Geek  party  tonight. Relief!  Without  geek parties,  we'd  never see
anybody but OURSELVES, day  in, day out. And  the big news of  the day
was that  Karla and  I found  a place  to house-sit  - it belongs to a
woman who got the layoff package  from Apple. We move in this  weekend
(yayyy!),  and the  move comes  as some  relief as  the Karla/Mom  not
communicating thing is oddly wearing on all of us.

The party: It was in San Francisco (the "sit-tay," as now cooler-than
us-by-virtue-of-living-there Bug and Susan call it), in Noe Valley  at
Ann and Jorge's, Anatole's friends. Jorge's with Sun Microsystems  and
Ann's with 3DO. There were  LARGE quantities of delicious, snobby  San
Francisco  food, great  liquor, industry  gossip, and  TVs displaying
earthquake damage all over the  apartment. Since us Oop!sters are  all
broke, we saved pots of money by not eating all day before the  party.
We never eat before geek parties.

* * *

In the moneyed world of Silicon Valley, nothing is uncooler than being
broke. Karla and I  were both curious to  see how Ann and  Jorge live.
When we arrived,  I was overwhelmed  by the hipness  factor. And where
are the GEEKS? Everyone was dressed. . . like real people. Where  were
the ironic fridge  magnets? The futons?  The IKEA furniture?  The Nerf
products? The house looked as though  it had been made over by  Martha
Stewart.  There were  REAL couches,  obviously purchased  NEW, in  red
velvet with gold and  silver silk throw pillows;  Matisse-derived area
rugs; little candles everywhere; a  REAL dining table with SIX  chairs
around it in its OWN ROOM with  vases and bowls full of pine cones  on
the mantel. These people were like ADULTS . . . seamless!

Susan said  they've merely  disguised their  evidence of  not having a
life: "I mean, it's like  you go to somebody's house  for Thanksgiving
and they've spent eighteen hours covering the rooms with little orange
squashes and quinces and crepe paper,  and the meal is like Henry  the
Eighth, and  you can't  eat because  you get  this creepy sick feeling
that the person who did the  dinner has nothing else to do  with their
life. It's the dark side of Martha Stewart's Living."

Ethan said Susan still felt guilty for putting too much work and money
into our gift baskets at Christmas.

I thought that  overdecoration and nice  houses might be  the regional
version of the never-used kayak in  the garage up at Microsoft. But  a
darker thought emerged: these may possibly be techies who HAVE A LIFE,
and they're upping the ante for the rest of us.

Susan, in spite of ragging on the decor with us, started fellating our
hostess, Ann, over the subject of houses. They were talking about some
expensive  store  in  Pacific  Heights  where  no  doubt  all  of this
furniture comes from.

Ann: "Fillamento, it's on Fillmore and Sacramento. They have the  best
stuff, I just got this amazing coverlet for our bed there. They had to
special-order it from Germany, but it is so gorgeous . . . do you want
to see it?"

Susan: "Of course!"

Off they went,  comparing decor purchases.  You'd never know  that Ann
used to be a chip designer.

* * *

The local rage is obscure, expensive premium vodkas - it's the  litmus
of cool at geek parties. Later  on, Susan, Karla, and I were  standing
around drinking Ketel-1, when some  guy who'd been checking Karla  out
came up and said, "Hi, I'm Phil, I'm a PDA."

PDAs  are what Newton is - it's  an acronym for Personal Digital

Assistant.

"You look more analog  than digital," Susan oh-so-wittily  batted back
at him.

"It stands for  Peons Down at  Apple!" Phil chortled,  ignoring Susan,
and zooming  in on  KARLA. It  was really  embarrassing, because Susan
wasn't picking  up on  the fact  that she  was being  ignored by Phil.
Karla was grossed out by Phil, and  I was on red alert about this  big
hulk zooming  in on  Karla. I  inserted myself  between him and Karla.
"Maybe it stands for Public Display of Affection." I put my arm around
Karla and introduced everybody.

Susan was laughing at Phil's jokes  - she's so desperate for a  dating
architecture in her  life, and when  Phil turned around  Karla mouthed
the words: REMOVE HIM FROM MY LIFE to Susan, then grabbed my shoulder,
and we went off to the den  to marvel at the amount of stuff  owned by
our hosts.  We felt  like East  Germans visiting  West Germany for the
first time.  Phil, meanwhile,  sensing defeat,  finally noticed Susan,
and began chatting her up.

For the next hour, we watched Phil regale Susan with exciting tales of
product  meetings, shipping  deadlines, engineering  crises, and  code
names for products.

* * *

I can't stop  marveling at how  together geeks are  in the Valley.  At
Microsoft, there was no peer  pressure to do anything except  work and
ship on time.  If you did,  you got a  Ship-it Award. Easy.  Black and
White.

Here,  it's so  much more  complicated -  you're supposed  to have  an
exciting, value-adding job that  utilizes your creativity, a  wardrobe
from Nordstrom's  or at  the very  least Banana  Republic, a  $400,000
house, a cool European or Japanese car, the perfect relationship  with
someone as ambitious, smart,  and well-dressed as yourself,  and extra
money to throw parties so that the whole world can observe what a life
you have, indeed. It makes me  miss Redmond, but at the same  time, it
is kind of inspiring. I feel conflicted.

Even Michael  noticed, with  a rare  lapse into  pop culture: "Perhaps
David Byrne was talking about  the geeks inheriting the earth  in that
Talking Heads song, 'This  is not my beautiful  house! This is not  my
beautiful wife! My God! How did I get here ?' "

Bug talked to a guy who's a game producer at a company called PF

Magic. (What's  up with  all of  these companies  named "Magic"? Is it
some-New  Age/George  Lucas-type  deal  or  what!  Uniquely   Northern
Californian.) Bug  thinks the  guy might  be gay,  but it  was hard to
tell.  "All the  guys around  here dress  well enough  to have  their
heterosexuality be suspect . . . it's not very helpful for me."

Bug has  done a  little damage  himself over  at the Stanford Shopping
Center, as part of his new program to "become enculturated into my new
lifestyle."

It would be so weird to all of a sudden have to take ail of the  myths
and  stereotypes  and  information   about  another  kind  of   sexual
orientation  and  somehow  wade through  them  in  order to  construct
yourself within that image. Susan's kind of doing it, too, but  within
heterosexuality - all of  a sudden she's a  Sexual Being, and I  think
she's  having  to learn  as  much about  sex  as Bug  is,  even though
theoretically she's been heterosexual all her life.

Many geeks  don't really  have a  sexuality -  they just  have work. I
think the  sequence is  that they  get jobs  at Microsoft  or wherever
right out of school,  and they're so excited  to have this "real"  job
and money that they just figure that the relationships will  naturally
happen, but then they wake up and they're thirty and they haven't  had
sex in eight years. There  are always these flings at  conferences and
trade  shows, and  everyone brags  about them,  but nothing  seems to
emerge from them and life goes back to the primary relationship:  Geek
and Machine.

It's like male geeks don't know  how to deal with real live  women, so
they  just assume  it's a  user interface  problem. Not  their fault.
They'll just wait for  the next version to  come out - something  more
"user friendly."

* * *

Ethan got through to his parents on a cellular phone around sunset; he
learned they were having the grandest of times, barbecuing burgers and
corn on the front lawn, and meeting their neighbors for the first time
in years. "Mom  said the Ronald  Reagan Library was  untouched. Like I
care."

I think he wanted  more drama. I think  he would have been  happier to
hear  that  his  mother  was  pinioned  beneath  a  collapsed chimney,
trickling blood  into the  phone receiver  held up  to her  ear by his
father.

* * *

Todd didn't come to the party. He was out on an actual, real, genuine,
not-fake, date-style DATE tonight.

* * *

I'm coming to the conclusion about the human subconscious . . .  that,
no matter how you look at it, machines really are our subconscious.  I
mean,  people from  outer space  didn't come  down to  earth and  make
machines for us . . . we made them ourselves. So machines can only  be
products of our being,  and as such, windows  into our souls .  . . by
monitoring the machines we build, and the sorts of things we put  into
them, we have this amazingly direct litmus as to how we are evolving.

* * *

Champaign-Urbana

Her  parents  are  engineers  but  that  wasn't  enough  to  keep them
together.

Pull the wires from the wall

Chelyabinsk-70


TUESDAY


Shake-up: Todd has begun seeing a female body builder named Dusty,  so
I guess  Armageddon can  only be  a little  ways away.  And here's the
freaky part - Dusty codes! She's  done systems for Esprit and Smith  &
Hawken. But she's the uncodiest female I've ever met.

"We met at the protein drink  sales case at Gold's Gym," beamed  Todd,
showcasing Dusty, who emerged into  our office like a Close  Encounter
of  the Third  Kind. "Dusty,"  Todd called,  "strike the  pose!" From
offstage  a ghetto  blaster pumped  out thwomping  lipstick-commercial
Eurodisco.

Dusty - late twenties or early thirties, with titanium hamstrings (and
perhaps  too much  time spent  in tanning  booths) in  ragged fringed
hotpants   and   a   ripped   T-shirt   commenced   vogueing  official
International  Bodybuilding Federation  poses. We  gaped openly.  Such
brazen posing!

Dusty then grabbed Misty, who  Mom brought downtown and then  promptly
left with us while she did some shopping, and twirled her by the  paws
in circles above our office's  Lego garden. All that was  missing were
popping flash bulbs  and a smoke  machine, and Misty,  unused to being
picked up  in such  a manner,  was blissed  and became Dusty's instant
lifelong fan.

Dusty  put down  the now-dizzy  Misty and  said, "Yeah  . .  ." in  a
Chesterfields-smoked-through-a-tracheotomy-slit voice (Dusty gets  her
voice from barking out aerobics commands, which, Todd informs us,  she
teaches) ".  . .  all those  big plastic  tubs of branch-chain protein
growth formula with  gold lettering -  Toddy and me  were fighting for
the last container of MetMax."

Their eyes  met and  they squeezed  each other's  hands -  it's a good
thing they  like each  other, because  otherwise it  would be like two
monster trucks chewing each other up at the KingDome.

* * *

Karla and Susan were being catty about Dusty:

Karla: "Dusty - sounds like the  name of someone who rides in  a radio
station traffic news-copter."

Susan: "She looks like she just escaped from an Ice-Follies Smurfs-on
Ice mall show - tousled mall hair, spandex, and perky perma-smile."

Michael closed his  door. He doesn't  like this side  of human nature,
but  later  Karla said  it's  because he's  attracted  to super-strong
women. "Trust me," she said. "I can tell these things.''

* * *

Ethan is building a Lego freeway cloverleaf. Once it's finished,  he's
going to smash it and repair it. He's been horrified by the Northridge
quake in Los Angeles. He's indeed a Valley boy.

At  a  Canon photocopy  shop  he enlarged  a  news wire  photo  of the
collapsed Antelope Valley freeway to  up to wall-sized and hung  it in
the office as a model to build from. I suppose he should have used the
money to  pay his  CABLE BILL,  but Karla  thinks he  likes to have an
excuse to visit us more at the office.

Michael wisely allows no cable in the office and has forbidden us from
playing Melrose Place and hockey fight dubs on the office VCR unit.

Ethan has already demolished the Wilshire Modernist block of the  Palo
Alto City Hall Dad constructed.

"Reconstruction is part  of the plan,"  said Ethan, and  Dad, although
miffed, took pity on Ethan and decided not to get huffy.

* * *

We LOVE our new  office and we no  longer have to worry  about rubbing
our  fingers on  surfaces and  finding accumulations  of Ethan's  dead
scalp particles.  Dad has  a Dustbuster  mounted on  the wall. We also
have SPACE.

* * *

Nobody scored last  night. Susan got  Phil's phone number  and Bug got
the PF Magic guy's number, even though he's not sure if he's  straight
or not. The 1990s!

Susan was a bit sheepish around  me and Karla, because she knows  Phil
is a loser, and she knows that we know.

* * *

Tech moment: we  have our own  Internet domain and  are subservient to
nobody. Our house is wired directly  to the Net with a mail-order  486
using Linux  on a  14.4 modem  with a  SLIP connection  to the  Little
Garden  (an   Internet  service   provider  down   here).  I   am  now
daniel@oop.com.

"@" could become the "Me" or "Mac" of the next millennium.

* * *

Surprise: Mom told me that Dad's been looking for work elsewhere - and
that Michael  knows about  it. "He  needs to  be among  his own  kind,
dear."

* * *

Actually, today was just a big waste of a day, work-wise. I didn't get
anything done because  I had too  many interruptions. I'd  start to do
something, then I'd be distracted by something else, forget what I was
doing  in the  first place,  and then  get so  worried that  I wasn't
getting anything done, that it wrecked even further my ability to  get
anything  done.   Sometimes  too   much  communication   is  too  much
communication. I should  rent a Nature  video and relax,  but instead,
tonight we rented The Poseidon Adventure and watched the ship  turning
upside down scene over and over  about fifty times and then we  rented
Earthquake and watched LA  dismantle itself about  fifty times, frame
by-frame.

Mom was in the breakfast nook typing a letter to her sister on an  IBM
Selectric and we got into an argument about whether anybody made  them
anymore. Maybe in Malaysia.


WEDNESDAY


Dusty is now  working with us!  Michael hired her  under the condition
that  she  devote  herself  to  the  company  and  confine  her   body
experimentation to off-hours - as well as to forgo aerobic instruction
moonlighting altogether  until shipping.  "And no  smart drugs!"  said
Michael. "Not that it's my business, but smart drugs turn people  into
Tasmanian Devils, not Einsteins."

"TouchÝ, Michelangelo," said Dusty. "That's French for meow." She  has
a hard time calling anybody by their real name.

Dusty was trying on a  new marigold yellow posing bikini  she's hoping
to wear in this  Fall's Iron Rose IV  Competition in San Diego.  Dusty
herself was the color of a roasted turkey.

Karla and Susan were once again certainly gaping. But in the end  they
broke down,  approaching her,  asking probing  questions, touching her
body like it was  the monolith in 2001.  They've - we've -  never seen
such a hyper-articulated body before. It reminds me of the first  time
I ever saw an SGI rendering at full blast.

"Toddy" has bailed out of  his geek house near the  Shoreline off-ramp
and has moved in  with Dusty up in  Redwood City. Eyebrows shot  up at
the news of such speedy  cohabitation, and then Todd confessed  he and
Dusty had  been seeing  each other  for MONTHS.  How could  he keep  a
secret like that in an office as small as ours?

* * *

Look and  Feel escaped  this afternoon  from their  newly reconfigured
Habitrail  and  chewed up  the  caboose on  Michael's  Lego train.  So
they're on probation now.

* * *

All of us went to the Tonga  Room at the Fairmont in San Francisco  to
celebrate Dusty's first  day as our  hacker, working with  Michael. It
was this incredible  blowout, like in  college. Dusty cut  in front of
all these people who were lined  up to get in and then  blithely waved
us over to the table she'd procured. Cool! She's a bulldozer.

The Tonga Room is filled  with rich dentists from Dusseldorf  watching
this Gilligan 's  Island fake Tiki  raft float across  an old swimming
pool while fake  thunder and rain  roar, and a  live band plays  disco
medleys. We ordered these  ridiculous umbrella and fruit-wedge  drinks
with high centers of gravity, so  every time somebody got up to  dance
(Oyez Como  Va!), all  the drinks  fell over  and the  waitresses just
wanted to kill us. We had to switch tables three times because of  the
fruit pulp buildup,  and the ochre  tablecloths looked like  swamps of
barf.

Two things:  Dusty said,  "I put  myself through  school working  as a
waitress. The guys loved me. I brought them food and beer - and then I
left them. Pigs."

Karla and Susan said, "Amen," much to my horror. They were all wearing
those little drink umbrellas in their hair.

Michael noted that the Tonga Room  uses a form of ice that  is neither
cubic   nor   slush-based:  "Someone   had   better  notify   7-Eleven
immediately. It's a niche!"

Dusty gave Susan lessons in dating architecture: "Tech women hold  all
the cards, and they  know it. Tech men  outnumber tech women by  about
three to one, so the women  can choose and discard mates at  will. And
let's face it, it's cool for a guy to be dating a tech chick."

I inwardly agreed with this. "Tech chicks" all seem so much wiser  and
mature than the guys (the  Karla Attraction Factor) that I  think they
must get fed  up. I overheard  Susan and Karla  complaining about tech
guys  at a  geek party  last month,  and I  started to  feel a  little
insecure. Up at Microsoft, geeks looked  exactly like what they were  
nerds, misfits, Dungeons & Dragons players out on day pass. Down  here
in the Valley, these tech guys are good-looking - they can pass in the
"normal" world without revealing their math team past. Whenever  Susan
and Karla started gushing over some cute guy, I started saying,  "He's
probably in MARKETING." It made me feel better.

Susan, nonetheless, wanted  to know why  she was having  such a dating
problem. Dusty said, "I think your problem is that you think  everyone
else is a freak except  you, but everybody's a  freak - you included  
and once you learn that, the World of Dating is yours."

I thought Susan would go ballistic, but instead she agreed.


THURSDAY


Dad was out today - job hunting. Anywhere else on earth except here in
the  Valley  he  wouldn't  have  a  chance,  but  here  he  might find
something.

* * *

Bug is  freaked out  because Magic  Eye stereograms,  the black  light
posters of the  1990s, don't  work with  him. He's  worried it's color
blindness linked, and he called the Garage Museum down in San Jose  to
see if it means something bad. He remembers those genetics charts they
had there. "I'm stereo-gramatically blind!"

* * *

Ethan and I went  out for a drink  again. He was really  swigging down
the drinks, and so I asked him  if it was smart to drink while  taking
antidepressants. He said, "Technically  no, it's a pretty  fuck-witted
thing to do, but drinking allows me to take an identity holiday."

I asked him  what this meant.  He said that  since the new  isomers of
anti-depressants are rewiring his brain, and since he's becoming a new
person because of it, every day he forgets more and more what the  old
person was who used to be.

"On the stuff  I'm taking, booze  never really makes  you smashed," he
said, "but it does allow me  to remember the sensation of what  I used
to be and feel like. Just briefly. Life wasn't all bad back then.  I'd
never go  back to  it full  time, but  I do  get nostalgic  for my old
personality. I imagine  in a parallel-forked  road universe there's  a
sad, fucked-up  Ethan, achieving  nothing, feeling  cramped, and going
nowhere.  I  don't  know. Once  you've  experienced  the turbo-charged
version of yourself, there's no going backward."

He had another Wallbanger  - "You know, pal  - maybe I should  de-wire
myself. De-wiring would  reconnect me  to the  world of  natural time 
sunsets and rainbows and crashing  waves and Smurfs." He took  a final
sip. "Nahhhh..."

* * *

Susan caught a cold, "From having my panties systematically  saturated
with fruit pulp at the Tonga Room."

* * *

Tomorrow we move into our house-sitting house.

* * *

Before bed I told Karla  about Ethan's identity holiday -  of drinking
to recapture the  feeling of what  your real personality  used to feel
like.

"It's all about identity," she said.

She said, "We look at  a flock of birds and  we think one bird is  the
same as any other bird - a bird unit. But a bird looks at thousands of
people, at a Giants game up at Candlestick Park, say, and all they see
is 'people units.' We're all as  identical to them as they are  to us.
So what  makes you  different from  me? Him  from you?  Them from her?
What makes  any one  person any  different from  any other? Where does
your individuality end and your species-hood begin? As always, it's  a
big question on my mind. You  have to remember that most of  us who've
moved to  Silicon  Valley,  we don't  have  the  traditional identity
donating structures  like other  places in  the world  have: religion,
politics,  cohesive family  structure, roots,  a sense  of history  or
other prescribed  belief systems  that take  the onus  off individuals
having to figure out who they are. You're on your own here. It's a big
task,  but just  look at  the flood  of ideas  that emerges  from the
plastic!"

I stared at  her, and  I imagine  she was  assuming I  was digesting  
compiling - what she'd  just told me, but  instead, all I could  think
of, looking into her  eyes, was that  there was this  entity - Karla  
who  was different  from all  others I  knew because  just under  the
surface of her skin lay the essence of herself, the person who  thinks
and dreams these  things she tells  to me and  only me. I  felt like a
lucky loser and I kissed her on the nose. So that's me for the day.

* * *

Oh . . .  I found a big  stack of old Sunset  magazines for sale in  a
secondhand shop.  I bought  them for  Mom. She's  a Sunset  freak. Mom
picked them up  like they were  feathers. She's strong  now. She's all
for  Dusty developing  her body.  She and  Dusty have  been comparing
notes. It's such a relief when your friends date cool people.


FRIDAY


Abe:

Today I  called 1-800  numbers and  ragged on  companies about  therir
products. I complsined to the Matell hotline (1-880-524-TOYS) that the
new HotWheels aren't as  cool the ones I  had when I wazs  growing up.
The only decent one they have is a Lexzus SC400. I've bought 3 of them
(the toys), but be this as it may, Mattel is NOT exonerated, where are
the Bubble cars, may I ask? So this is my life, Dan. C'est la Vie.

* * *

Mattel  karma!  Susan  came  storming  into  the  office  late  in the
afternoon,  having just  visited a  Toys-R-Us store  in pursuit  of a
present for her niece. Susan was  furious about Mattel products, too  
in particular  about Barbie  dolls. As  I was  the only  person in the
office, I received the entirety of her postfeminist critique.

"The aisle - it was pink - I mean, the entire aisle was this shocking,
moist, Las Vegas labia pink color,  and it was a big aisle,  Dan. Tens
of thousands of Barbies gazing vapidly at me - this wall of mall  hair
- the aisle haunted with the ghostly sound of purged vomit yet to come
-  of unsustainable  desire. Their  necks thicker  than their  waists;
sparkles; an incitement to eating disorders -"

Susan was  just going  on and  on, so  I used  that tactic  you use on
little kids who won't  stop crying - I  simply changed the subject.  I
told her  how weird  it is  to think  that simply  by walking down the
wrong  aisle  at  Toys-R-Us  at  the  wrong  moment  in  your  child's
development, you can forever screw up their future: "They have a whole
aisle devoted  to McDonald's  restaurant products  - french-fry making
machines,  burger makers,  shake makers  . .  . Say  you overlook  the
computer aisle and walk down  the McDonald's aisle instead -  one tiny
error and your kid's got  a drive-thru headset surgically embedded  in
his cranium for the next seven decades.

"Toy stores  are like  Brave New  World. Mom!  Pop! Choose  your aisle
correctly. That's all I can say."

I later e-mailed this Huxleyan thought to Abe who replied:

*1959* 100th McDonald's: Fon du Lac, Wisconsin

*1960* 200th McDonald's: KnoHuille, Tennessee

*1964* Filet-o-Fish born

*1966* First indoor-seating McDonald's: Huntsville, Alabama

*1970* First McDonald's breakfast: Waikiki, Hawaii

*1973* Quarter Pounder born

*1975* Egg McMuffin born

*1975*
Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbu
n

*1983* McNuggets born

* * *

At the office  we've decided that  instead of Friday  being jeans day,
we'd have Boxer Shorts Day instead. It's way comfier, way sexier,  and
it's funny watching Michael admonish the male staff members, "Er . . .
gentlemen: no units displayed if at all possible."

* * *

Dad came in to the office from job hunting around sundown. We made him
a Cup O'Noodles and  played some crank phone  call tapes to cheer  him
up. Dusty tried to  get him to wear  a pair of striped  boxers but Dad
politely refused.  Later on  I went  up to  the house  and helped  him
remove an old basketball hoop above the garage that's been there since
the dawn  of bell-bottoms.  I fell  and cut  myself on  some of  Mom's
rosebushes, and  I know  it's corny,  but I  got to  thinking, it's no
surprise roses are the Official Flower of Love.

* * *

My  hard  drive accidentally  trashed  today's file,  so  I include  a
snippet of the trash here as a curiosity piece. Language!

All 11I  11 It  the office  we" live  decided that  instead of  Friday
Fll11113636111136being jeans day, we" 11111111113636373733d have Boxoi
Shorts Day instead. It" 11113838393940404141424243434444s way comfici,
way sexier, lllland it"lllls funny watching Michael admonish the  male
stall  members,  ""1111451111114545464647474811114848Please  guys,  no
units       displayed        if       at        all       possible.""!
111494950505l&f&v&w&x&z&A&e&i&a&A&n&O' '4'O'S'['_'o 'Q'U**"*t*l*}+ + +
L     +     h     +     v,     ,?,'-9-a-}-A-6-0-©-*-0-ì-A-0-fl-,,-AOU.
.?.G.O.S.T.b.l.~.N.6.e.e.i.i.u.ii.B.0/                               /
/S/b/c/d/e/A/6oOO¥Of~lT'lJnLrt^^^ " " I " I A A I " „ " „ " „ " " U  "
U   "   "   "   U   "  "   U   "   U   "   \  ]   c   U   A   V   A  I
vUAcH]UA]c$\]cPR5151525253535454555556561111111111Dusty  tried  to get
him to wear a pair of striped boxers but Dad politely refused.


SATURDAY


Today was the day Karla and I finally moved into our (temporarily) own
place . . .  the Apple friend of  Anatole who's going to  Tasmania for
eight months to  study batik (she  got the layoff  package . .  . it's
like backward Microsoft) and so  we're house-sitting for her. Like  so
many  techie  houses,  it's   big,  sterile,  stuffed  with   consumer
electronics, and there's nothing on the walls and there are about  six
empty rooms lit by dozens of skylights. At least it's not one of these
big Mediterranean 1980s stucco houses Susan calls "Drug Lord" houses 
ostentatious stucco monuments with a Porsche 928-S parked out front.

Anyway, to  remedy the  house's sterility  we're doing  what Ethan did
with his  photo of  the collapsed  freeway overpass,  and we're making
photocopy blowups of cool images.  We've made blowups of Barry  Diller
(inventor of the Movie of the Week back in 1973 - in an office  inside
the ABC Entertainment Complex, Century City, Los Angeles,  California)
as well as a blowup of the ABC Entertainment Complex's twin towers.

I also  enlarged an  elegant undamaged  California freeway  cloverleaf
from the seminal Handbook of Highway Engineering. And needless to  say
we did a double portrait of  BILL. One right-side up - another  upside
down.

* * *

Ethan delivered  to us  a bottle  of 1977  Cabernet as  a housewarming
present  and  said  he  felt jealous  of  our  posters  - the  highest
compliment, coming from him.

* * *

Todd and Dusty seem to have found soulmates in each other. They  spend
their precious few hours of post-code time discussing the vagaries  of
the New Human Body  - in the  office and at  gym, deciding which  mini
muscle needs alteration, discussing steroids as though they were  Pez,
and  figuring out  the mechanics  of cosmetic  surgery. They  want to
become "post-human" - to make their bodies like the Bionic Woman's and
the Six Million Dollar Man's - to go to the next level of bodyhood.

Todd was in  a chatting mode  today - love's  first sweep, and  I know
what it is - and he told me of how happy Dusty makes him feel, of  how
pretty he thinks she is, of how she seems to believe in something  and
to believe more  than Todd believes.  "It's as if  all those one-night
stands never mattered. Because all  I care about is Dusty  crushing my
body (Have you ever  done that Daniel .  . . been crushed?  God, is it
sexy) and having her speak to me. Nobody's ever spoken to me before. I
mean, not to me. I was always  just a soul to be harvested or  a human
unit. But with Dusty I'm me, and I don't have to fake normality."

"That's how I feel with Karla," I said.

Todd said, "She pumps me. Love is just this great big pump."

* * *

Todd,  on top  of his  coding work,  is designing  an Oop!  Muscleman
starter  kit that  will fold  and mutate  like a  GoBot or  a protein
molecule into bulldozers, tanks, satellite stations, and Kalashnikovs.
Michael thinks it'll be a big hit.

Michael is making each of us design an Oop! starter module so that  we
can utilize all segments of our brain aside from the  cattle-blindered
coding part of our  brain. Michael is really  such a slave driver.  He
squishes everything he can out of us. It's very Bill, so we can relate
to it. I'm doing a space station.

Susan, among her many tasks -  the main one of which is  designing the
Oop! user interface  - is designing  a dancing skeletons  program. She
has a burned-out  Stanford medical grad  student converting all  human
bones into Oop! bricks,  which are in turn  linked, like bones in  the
human body. But  she's also having  other animal skeletons  digitized,
and she's designing her program  so that users can build  new species.
Flesh comes next.

Ethan is even developing a game - one where players train dolphins for
the Department of Defense and  he's designing Oop! weaponry and  boats
and submarines.

Karla's designing a vegetable factory in which small chipmunks trapped
inside must run  for their lives  or end up  diced ("God bless  Warner
Brothers"); Bug is  designing a castle  with dungeon, and  I must say,
it's good. He's come up with "torture nodes."

Michael wants  Oop! users  to be  able to  play Doom-like  chase games
throughout whatever  we build,  and is  working to  form an allegiance
with  a company  up-Bay in  San Francisco  that provides  a multiline
server so that nerds in different area codes can game together.

* * *

Michael was on a rant, quite  justified, I thought, about all of  this
media-hype  generation nonsense  going on  at the  moment. Apparently
we're all "slackers."  "Daniel, who thinks up these things?"

Michael  pointed  out  that  humans  are  the  only  animals  to  have
generations. "Bears,  for example,  certainly don't  have generations.
Mom and Dad bears don't expect their offspring to eat different  kinds
of berries and hibernate to a different beat. The belief that tomorrow
is a different place from today is certainly a unique hallmark of  our
species."

Michael's theory  is that  technology creates  and molds  generations.
When  technology  accelerates to  a  critical point,  as  it has  now,
generations become irrelevant. Each  of us as individuals  becomes our
own individual  diskette with  our own  personal "version."  Much more
logical.

* * *

Mom couldn't get  the garage door  opener to work,  so I fixed  it for
her. We took Misty  for a walk along  La Cresta. The stop  sign at the
corner of Arastradero was completely covered with Scotch tape,  pieces
of ribbon,  and empty  balloons from  where people  mark off  birthday
parties. It was funny.

* * *

Ethan's freeway is taking far longer to build than he anticipated  and
it "eats bricks like crazy."

* * *

I asked Dusty if she grew up with Barbie dolls and she said, "No,  but
indeed I rilly, rilly lusted  after them in my heart.  Hippie parents,
you know. Rill crunchy. I had a Raggedy Ann doll made in, like, Sierra
Leone. And all I rilly desired was a Barbie Corvette - more than  life
itself."

*sigh*

"So instead I played with  numbers and equations. Some trade-off.  The
only store-bought toy I was ever  allowed was a Spirograph, and I  had
to beg to  receive it as  a May Day  present. And I  had to pretend  I
wanted it because it was mathematical - so clean and solvable. But  my
parents were suspicious of  mathematics because math isn't  political.
They're like, freaks."

Dusty's forearms resemble Popeye's.  And they have pulsing  veins that
look  like a  meandering river.  Ethan and  I were  talking, when  he
shouted across the room, "Jesus Christ, Dusty - I can take your  pulse
from over here."

* * *

I asked  Karla if  she grew  up with  Barbie dolls  and she  said (not
looking up from her keyboard), "This is so embarrassing, but not  only
did  I  play  with  Barbies,  but  I  played  with  them  up  until an
embarrassingly late age  - ninth grade."  She then looked  over at me,
expecting reproach.

This did come  as some surprise;  I suppose it  revealed itself on  my
face.  She began  typing again,  and speaking  over the  clack of  her
fingers on the keyboard.

"But before you go and think I'm a lost cause, you should know that  I
gave my  Barbie admirable  pursuits -  I took  apart my  brother's Hot
Wheels and made  a Barbie Toyota  Assembly Plant, giving  Barbie white
overalls,  a  clipboard,  and  I  provided  jobs  for  many  otherwise
unemployed Americans."  She paused  and looked  up from  her keyboard.
"God, no wonder my parents refused to believe I was intelligent."


MONDAY


This  afternoon while  visiting Todd  and Dusty's  cottage in  Redwood
City, I tried to find a snack in their fridge.

Bad idea.

Pills, lotions, capsules,  powders . .  . anything except  what normal
human beings might  call "food." There  was a Rubbermaid  container of
popcorn. There was Turbo  Tea, Amino mass, pure  Creatine, Mus-L-Blast
2000+, raw chickens, Super Infiniti 3000, and chromium supplements  as
well as small bottles I thought it more polite not to inquire about.

I really have to  wonder if Todd's doing  steroids. I mean, he's  just
not physically normal. We're all going to have to face this.

Dusty was out at the Lucky Mart buying bananas and kelp. I asked Todd,
"Shit, Todd -  what is it  exactly you want  your body to  do for you?
What is it your body's not doing for you now that it's going to do for
you at some future date?" Not really Todd's sort of question.

"I think I want to  have sex using a new  body which allows me to  not
have to remember my ultrareligious family." Todd mulled this over.  We
looked  around the  apartment, strewn  with hex  dumbbells and  rubber
flooring mats. "My body was just something I could believe in  because
there was nothing else around."

* * *

Susan was sulking  about her dating  architecture here in  the Valley.
Her fling with Mr. Intel ended long ago - she says Intel's culture  is
too macho to accept  macho women. Phil the  PDA was history eons  ago.
She  kept  talking about  that  Mary Tyler  Moore  episode where  Mary
tabulates the number of  dates she's had over  the span of her  dating
career and gets depressed. And then there was a big debate as we tried
to remember if that was the episode where she began dating Lou.

Susan only seems to meet  techies. ("Well, Sooz," says Karla,  "you do
spend almost all of your time in the Valley . . .")

"It's not just  the techiness, Kar  - it's that  the number of  flings
I've had in my life  now outnumbers the number of  relationships. I've
crossed a line."

Tonight she has a date with a Marina District tattoo artist, so  we're
all expecting her to show up tomorrow with a Pentium chip etched  into
her shoulder.

The thing  about  Susan  is  that she's  making  the  leap  into self
reconstruction so late in life. Her new dominant attitude comes from a
genuine need, but it's so twisted  by years of - I don't  know exactly
what. I don't know as much about Susan as I ought, I suppose. Her  IBM
upbringing and all of that. But the subject. . . how to broach it?

* * *

Ethan seems to have  forgotten his partially completed  freeway. We've
nicknamed it the "Information Superhighway."

* * *

Susan reformatted and zinged-up Dad's  resume on Quark. He used  a (oh
God . . .)  dot-matrix printer to do  his old resume. Mom's  Selectric
would have even been cooler.

* * *

This  afternoon  I mistakenly  said  Palo Alto  was  in the  "Silicone
Valley," and Ethan snapped at me, "Silicone is what they put inside of
tits, Dan-O. It's Silikawn . . ."

Boom! Dusty began telling us about her first breast implants at age  I
9, its subsequent  failure, her  litigation and  her support  groups 
tales of  black goo  seeping from  nipples, ".  . .  immunosuppressive
globules of silicone gel migrating through my blood system, triggering
this never-ending yuppie flu. It was awful. That's how I got into body
manipulation and extreme health . . . because of the globules."

Yet again, the  Dustmistress had us  all riveted. Karla  and Susan are
now totally  obsessed  with  Dusty's  arms,  which  are  like  leather
sheathed steel cables from the Bay Bridge, all digitally animated like
Spielberg dinosaurs. When she flexes her arms, you feel queasy -  like
you're going to be eaten. She says that because she has long arms, she
has to  work "harder  to the  power of  three" to  make them appear as
proportioned as they would on a shorter woman. She's a calculus whiz.

The cattiness with Dusty ended quickly. Now they all like each  other.
Actually, I think it  goes deeper than "like  " - but where  or how, I
don't know.

* * *

Dusty's older than  Todd by about  five years. During  a carbo-loading
break later  in the  day, she  started telling  me and  Karla all this
personal  stuff.  It doesn't  take  much with  Dusty.  The distinction
between herself and the public is muzzy.

"I made  the switch  and started  liking younger  guys about two years
ago. The  older ones  kept getting  all serious  . .  . and wanting to
discuss marriage. The young kids are puppy dogs and when I want to get
rid of them, I just start  talking babies and before you know  it they
start giving me reasons why they  have to hang out at their  friends',
and why they can't come over."

She found a piece of skin on her chicken breast and picked it off.

"I think that once I start having babies, I'm going to forget my body.
But tell that to Toddy and you're dead meat. I think he's 'a  keeper.'
Remember -  I can  crush you  into cat  food with  my thumb  and index
finger alone."

And she could!

Karla says that Dusty's freaked out that any baby she might have  will
be a freak  because of the  fantastic quantities of  scary digestibles
she's eaten over the years, on top of her implants and her flirtations
with bulimia and extreme diets.

"She's done  it all,"  says Karla,  "steroids, uppers,  downers, coke,
poppers, Pritikin, Oprah .. ."

* * *

Went with Karla up  to Mom and Dad's  and helped them sort  things out
for  recycling.  When  nobody  was  looking,  I  hucked  some   fallen
tangerines at the Valotas' house  down below ours. Mr. Valota  is this
Gladys-Kravitz-from-Bewitched type  guy who  somehow taps  into all of
the misinformation, apocrypha, and bad memes floating about the Valley
and feeds them back to Mom  in the aisles of Draeger's in  Menlo Park.
He's always saying discouraging things about Oop! to Mom. Gee  thanks,
Mr. Valota.

I liked hearing the tangerines go thunk as they hit the cedar shingles
of his lanai. It's  never the Mr. Valotas  of this world whose  houses
burn down.

I was breathing really hard as I was carrying the Rubbermaid Roughneck
containers to the end of the driveway. I hope nobody noticed that  I'm
way out of shape.

* * *

Abe's list of things to do on how to get a life:

1) Move out of a group house

2) Get involved in non-computer-related activities

3) Treat yourself to a bubble bath (I couldn't think of anything else)


TUESDAY


Dusty's twin sister, Michelle, came  to visit. She's a collagen  sales
rep for a biotech firm near San  Diego and like a plumper, less  turbo
charged Dusty.

She ambled around the Lego garden  for a while, watched us code,  then
yawned pointedly.  After further  multiple theatrical  yawns, she then
pulled two Simpsons dubs on VHS out of her purse and started  watching
them on the VCR, and one  by one we melted away from  our workstations
and began watching along with her.

Michael arrived  with Dad,  found us  recumbent and  laughing, freaked
out,  and  sent us  back  to work,  sending  Michelle packing  on  the
CalTrain. Michael is now Bill!

Dusty said  Ciao, and  resumed tweaking  her algorithms.  Dusty's poor
parents -  all they  wanted was  a nice  pair of  folk-singing, shawl
knitting Leslie Van Houtens and Patricia Krenwinkels. Instead they got
two lighter-complexioned Grace Jones replicants morphed together  with
a Malibu Barbie.

* * *

Date update: Susan is without a tattoo.

* * *

It turns out Dusty's an expert on, of all things, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire (UC Santa Cruz undergrad). Talk about pure randomness. She  did
this  to  please  her  Leftoid  hippie  freak  parents.  ("It  was  an
accelerated program that only took two years," she says. "Subjectivity
is so much faster to scale.")

Discovering that Dusty was  well informed about some  calcified aspect
of  European  history was  like  discovering -  I  don't know  -  like
discovering that the  happy face  on the  Kool-Aid pitcher  is a cross
dresser. It's so random.

I mention this because tonight Todd  and Dusty had dinner with a  crew
of moping ex-Marxist buddies of her parents over in Berkeley - all  of
them feeling left behind by the tide of history, singing freedom songs
with a 5-stringed guitar; facial hair. That kind of stuff. There  were
probably lots of candles.

I think the  religious feeling  made Todd  homesick for  his religion
frenzied parents in Port Angeles. He returned to the office,  brooded,
and then he started  to cry, then he  went out on the  lawn and didn't
return for an hour.

* * *

Oh,  and this  afternoon I  caught Ethan  scrounging under  the couch
cushions, in pursuit of lost coins. The embarrassment!


WEDNESDAY


Big gossip - Todd has announced he's becoming a . . . Marxist! Of  all
things.

"Oh,  Christ,  Todd,"  said  Ethan,  "that's  like  announcing  you're
becoming Bugs Bunny."

Karla asked, "A Marxist? But Todd - the Wall came down in 1989."

"That doesn't matter."

"No, of course it doesn't," said Ethan.

"Arrogant bourgeois cochon" Todd slung back.

So anyway,  Todd's found  something external  to believe  in. I  don't
think it's a matter of dumbness  or smartness, just his need to  need,
as ever.

* * *

Ethan was on the warpath: "If  Todd expects us to treat him  with some
sort of  respect just  because he  believes in  some sort of outdated,
cartoon-like ideology, he has another thing coming."

Ethan is being "reactionary" (Todd told me the word). But, as with any
recent conversions to any new belief, Todd does exude a  righteousness
that is a touch off-putting, if not boring.

Michael  said of  the matter,  "Everything else  aside, his  preaching
interferes with his coding - as if bodybuilding didn't already use  up
enough of his brain's CPU. I think his parents being so religious  and
all, he has been trained with a deep need to follow."

Karla said, "Let's call them Boris and Natasha from now on."

* * *

Karla and I  were both perplexed  as we discussed  the change in  bed.
"Where on earth  did politics come  from?" I asked.  "Todd's gone from
being historically empty to becoming a young post-Marxist,  post-human
code cruncher. Converted on the posing dais, I suppose."

"Red in his bed."

So who says people don't change?

* * *

Abe e-mailed from his mini-holiday in Vancouver:

I'm  at the  Westin in  Vancouver. Room  service asked  me, inocently
enough, "How many people will be eating?" and I replied, "2" , because
I didn't want to seem like I was alone. Which I wwas.

How bad is this on a scale of one to ten?

My reply:

Abe . . . it's an "ELEVEN*

* * *

Dad got  a callback  from Delta  Airlines for  a job  in their billing
systems department. "It's tangential to high-tech - not really part of
it - but . . ." Dad's interview is in two days. Bug and Dad went  into
town to get their hair cut together at one of those barber shops  with
a stuffed bass on the wall. Bug said it was like going to a Toppy's in
Moscow.

* * *

Political nuttiness:

Todd: "Marxism presupposed that  technology would never pass  beyond a
certain  point  . .  .  Marxism's 19th-century  creation  lends it  an
attractive distance in the postindustrial, late capitalist era."

Ethan: "There is more to prosperity than envy and redistribution."

Susan: "I'm  sure the  Hollywood unions  are just  waiting with  bated
breath for  coding and  multimedia production  to unionize.  What's it
going to be - I write the code and then somebody from I.A.T.S.E. comes
in and has to press the return key?"

Me: "TIME OUT!"

Politics only makes people cranky. There must be some alternative form
of discourse. How is political will generated? Susan is embarrassed to
be agreeing  with Ethan  over something.  Normally they  squabble over
everything.

* * *

Michael caught  us playing  Doom on  the office  operating system  and
flipped out . . . or rather, he deleted it from the system and gave me
a lecture  about lost  people-hours when  I later  asked him to please
reinstall it. In the end he  did, because it would be catastrophic  to
worker morale to not be able to hunt and kill your co-workers.

"And Daniel,  they have  a new  version called  Doom II  coming out in
October, and rumor  has it  that pirated  versions have  a hard-drive
trashing  virus,  so  all  I  ask  is  that  you  don't  even consider
installing it."

Good luck.

Bug was so mad that he wanted to write a Marburg virus and stick it in
Michael's machine, but this is  just typical Bug ranting. The  Marburg
virus is so dangerous, it  can't even be studied. Thirty-seven  German
laboratory workers died in conjunction with it.


THURSDAY

Todd called me a cryptofascist today. In honor of this, I'm formatting
this particular paragraph flush right.

* * *

Michael said something  cool today. He  said something remarkable  and
unprecedented has occurred to us as  a species now - "We've reached  a
critical mass point where the amount of memory we have externalized in
books and databases (to name but a few sources) now exceeds the amount
of memory contained within our collective biological bodies. In  other
words, there's more memory 'out there' than exists inside 'all of us.'
We've peripheralized our essence."

He went on:

"Given this  new situation,  the presumption  of the  existence of the
notion of 'history' becomes  not necessarily dead but  somewhat beside
the point. Access to memory replaces historical knowledge as a way for
our species  to process  its past.  Memory has  replaced history - and
this is not bad news. On the contrary, it's excellent news because  it
means  we're no  longer doomed  to repeat  our mistakes;  we can  edit
ourselves as we go along,  like an on-screen document. The  transition
from history at the center to memory on the periphery may prove to  be
initially  bumpy  as people  shed  their intellectual  inertia  on the
issue, but the  transition is an  inevitability, and thank  heavens we
have changed the  nature of change  itself - the  prospect of cyclical
wars and dark ages and golden ages has never particularly appealed  to
me."

Finally:

"And the continuing democratization of memory can only accelerate  the
obsolescence of  history as  we once  understood it.  History has been
revealed   as   a  fluid   intellectual   construct,  susceptible   to
revisionism, in  which a  set of  individuals with  access to  a large
database dominates another set with less access. The age-old notion of
'knowledge is power' is overturned  when all memory is  copy-and-paste
able  - knowledge  becomes wisdom,  and creativity  and intelligence,
previously thwarted by lack of access to new ideas, can flourish."

I changed the subject to that  of tickets to the upcoming Sharks  game
in San Jose.


FRIDAY

Todd apologized for calling me

a cryptofascist and called me

"benignly centrist," instead.

The formatting for this paragraph is obvious.

* * *

Dad had his  interview with Delta.  "An interview's an  interview's an
interview," he said. I think he just doesn't want to overly raise  his
hopes.

* * *

I later told Dusty Michael's theory of history being dead and she went
goggle-eyed. Dusty said  conspiratorially, "Michael  may be  a crypto
Marxist."  (Oh God . . .) She kept blabbing, and it's so weird to  see
Dusty's  mouth  moving and  genuine  political words  emerge.  It just
doesn't mesh with her computer image. I get the impression she  should
be discussing exfoliation or tanning factors instead, but then, bodies
are political, too. Or so Dusty has informed the office.

I surprised Dusty. I said, that "since Marxism is explicitly based  on
property, ownership, and control of  means of production, it may  well
end up being the final true politik of this Benetton world we now live
in." She said, "Hey, Danster - I underestimated you."

It was interesting to briefly enter the political realm - as such.


SATURDAY


Dusty made a "Bulimia Top Ten List." Dusty is so incredibly willing to
discuss her  body. She  even confessed  she had  to become  a big-time
shoplifter to  support her  habit. "Hey  babe -  bulimia ain't cheap."
Karla was, needless to say, silent on the subject.

Bulimia Top Ten List:

	• several buckets of Haagen-Dazs strawberry

	• two large spaghetti dinners

	• large box of Godiva chocolates

	• stack of eight grilled cheese sandwiches with ketchup

	• entire cheesecake

	• two dozen chocolate pudding cups

	• four hundred grapes

	• bucket of McDonald's french fries

	• even larger box of Godiva chocolates

	• largest box of chocolates in the universe

* * *

Dusty is designing a cosmetic surgery program for Oop! as her creative
project. Basic body and facial structures are loaded into the  system,
and  by sucking  and implanting  bricks in  and out,  Oop! users  can
reengineer whatever body shape they want.

Dusty's  being  stringent  in   using  100  percent  genuine   medical
parameters, so even  if you wanted  to, you couldn't  transform Arnold
Schwarzenegger  into Christy  Turlington. "You  can only  max out  the
potential of what's already there. Users must know the body's limits."

She  and  Susan  are  sharing  bone  parameters  from  Susan's dancing
skeletons product.

* * *

Speaking of Christy Turlington, I  have noticed that a fair  number of
women seem to want to be her.  In fact, I have noticed that if  modern
conversations don't switch to the disappearance of time, they shift to
discussions of super-models. I  guess supermodels are like  geeks, but
instead of winning  the Punnet Square  of brains, they  won the Punnet
Square of looks. It must  be bizarre being fabulously good-looking.  I
mean, at least you can disguise brains.

* * *

Supermodel; Superhighway. Coincidence?

* * *

The Boris and Natasha nickname is really catching on. We actually  use
the names to their faces. I think they love it.

* * *

I keep forgetting Susan's rich, but she is. She came back from grocery
shopping at Draeger's with edible flowers ($1.99 a tub) and Bear  Head
mushrooms ($19.99/lb. - they look  like white coral). Karla and  I buy
noodle-helper-style  boxed products  at Price-Costco.  We're going  to
have to start eating  better. Food is too  good here, and eating  crap
makes you feel like such an outsider in the Bay Area.

* * *

Rants are the official communication mode of the '90s.

Karla asked Dusty what she thought of Lego, and this triggered a mega
rant:

"What  do I  think of  Lego! Lego  is, like,  Satan's playtoy.  These
seemingly 'educational' little blocks of connectable fun and happiness
have  irrevocably brainwashed  entire generations  of youth  from the
information-dense industrialized nations into developing mindsets that
view the  world as  unitized, sterile,  inorganic, and interchangeably
modular - populated by  bland limbless creatures with  cultishly sweet
smiles."

("Minifigs" are  what the  tiny Lego  people are  called -  Dusty must
learn the correct terminology.)

"Lego  is  directly  or  indirectly  responsible  for  everything from
postmodern architecture (a crime)  to middle class anal  behavior over
the perfect lawn. You worked at Microsoft, Dan, you know them -  their
lawns . . . you know what I mean.

"Lego promotes an overly  mechanical worldview which once  engendered,
is rilly, rilly impossible to surrender."

"Anything else, Dusty?"

"Yes. Lego  is, like,  the perfect  device to  enculturate a citizenry
intolerant of smell,  intestinal by-products, nonadherence  to unified
standards, decay, blurred edges, germination, and death. Try imagining
a forest made of Lego. Good luck. Do you ever see Legos made from ice?
dung? wood? iron? and sphagnum moss? No - grotacious, or what?"

"Sure, Dusty, but what  do you think of  Michael's product idea -  his
coding?"

"It's rilly, rilly brilliant."

* * *

We've decided that we must have entertainment to break the monotony of
coding and work.

We tried going to  movies at the Shoreline  Cineplex, but movies at  a
theater take FOREVER to watch - no fast forward. And VCR rental movies
take forever to watch, even using the FFWD button.

Then Karla accidentally discovered this incredible time-saving  secret
-  foreign  movies  with  subtitles!  It's  like  the  crack   cocaine
equivalent of movies. We watched  a Japanese movie - an  artistic one,
at that (Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth) - in less than an  hour.
All you have to do is blast  directly through to the subtitles, speed
read them, and then blip out the rest. It's so efficient it's scary.

"Why can't they subtitle English movies?" asked Karla. I mean, they do
books-on-tape for  commuters. Subtitled  English movies  would fill  a
potentially big niche. No one has time anymore."

* * *

Mr.  Ideology himself  (Boris) walked  in, and  Ethan couldn't  resist
telling  him  that  he'd  run   a  search  on  Lenin  on   an  on-line
encyclopedia, and  it turns  out Lenin's  name means  nothing. "It's a
made up name - like Sting - he just showed up at the dacha one morning
and said, 'Call me Lenin.' "

Todd responded by saying, "Just goes to show you how he was postmodern
a century ahead of his time."

* * *

Dusty was trying to tell us  all about "Mehrwert" - surplus value  per
unit of time/labor: "A worker  creates more value than that  for which
he is compensated. You know?"

Michael went purple, like a Burger  King manager who hears one of  his
employees discuss unionization.

And then Karla screwed Michael's notions of production up even further
by passing along a meme somebody spammed her on the Net that day, that
any multiple  of 6,  minus one,  is a  prime number.  All work STOPPED
immediately as everybody set out to prove its validity.

* * *

Todd pointed  out something  I thought  was really  true. He said that
when future archaeologists dig  up the remains of  California, they're
going to  find all  of these  gyms and  all of  this scary-looking gym
equipment, and they're going to assume that we were a culture obsessed
with torture.

* * *

Went for late coffee  at the Posh Bagel  on Main Street in  Los Altos.
The white lights in  the trees were so  pretty. Human beings can't  be
all that bad.


SUNDAY


Dusty is  furious with  Todd. She  discovered a  collection of cans of
aerosol  "religious  sprays" he  had  hidden in  his  cupboard -  like
"Aerosol Stigmata" and "Santa Barbara in a Can." His mom sends them to
him from Port Angeles. She buys them from a Catholic mail-order  house
in Philadelphia. It's so weird, but these sprays really exist.

Todd sulked: "She threw them out like time-expired antibiotics."

* * *

In order to foster a less combative working environment, Michael and I
are trying to  think of the  most apolitical environment  possible. We
finally hit upon  Star Trek as  a zero-politics zone.  So I introduced
the notion of TrekPolitiks to the office.

Susan said, "Ever notice how, like, nobody ever goes shopping on  Star
Trek? They're a totally post-money society. If they want a banana they
simply photocopy one on the replicator. Substitute Malaysia or  Mexico
for the replicator,  and make Palo  Alto the Bridge,  and bingo: RIGHT
NOW = STAR TREK."

It's true.

If you think about it.

I added, "Ever notice how they never have to report to anybody on Star
Trek?  No  suits zoom  in  from Star  Fleet  Corporate and  hold  them
fiscally responsible for frying a dilithium crystal doing doughnuts in
the  Delta  Quadrant.  Or  Star  Fleet  Marketing,  for  that matter."
(Pointed glares at Ethan.)

Karla likes the notion of  TrekPolitiks. "Left vs. right is  obsolete.
Politics is, in the end, about biology, information,  diversification,
numbers, numbers,  and numbers  - all  candy coated  with charisma and
guns."

Karla like myself  is of the  new apolitical pick-and-choose  style of
citizen.  I  think  politics  is soon  going  to  resemble  a J.  Crew
catalogue more  than some  1776 ideal.  If somebody  wants to  run for
office, they had better  be able to explain  why they want to  run for
office.  Wanting  to  be  a candidate  seems,  in  itself,  reason for
exclusion.

Dusty  said,  "Thomas Jefferson  never  anticipated Victoria's  Secret
catalogues and  media-induced social  atomization. Just  think - we're
rapidly approaching a world  composed entirely of jail  and shopping."
She paused to consider this,  said, "Grotacious!" then she went  for a
jog.

* * *

Dad had his second callback from Delta.

* * *

Karla  apparently  noticed  my  breathing the  other  day  when  I was
carrying the trash cans to the end of the driveway. She has decided  I
should start going to the gym. "You have to add more megs to your hard
drive. I'm going, too." She's right - we both need meat on us - excuse
me - we both need more crystal lattice added on to our drives.

* * *

Every time I look at Karla, she changes and changes, and now I realize
other men are looking at her and this makes me have to look at myself,
and what I see is sort  of scrawny. Suddenly Karla can date  higher on
the geek food  chain than me  if she wants  to - she  can date all the
Phils-from-Apples  of  this world  -  she has  entered  the realms  of
buffness and cleft chins. I care about being with her too much to lose
her to a . . . Phil unit. To lose her ever, to anyone. I can't imagine
losing her. I must make myself  stronger. I must build a better  me. I
must become the Bionic Man.

* * *

It turns out that if you  tape TV shows that are close-captioned,  you
CAN have  English language  subtitles. Our  entertainment universe has
multiplied itself!


MONDAY


Susan told us today what our characters and powers would be if we were
on Star Trek:

Michael: Disembodied  neocortex  afloat  inside  a  tank  of  nutrient
bearing  solution;  has  ability  to  see  back  and  forth  in  time;
communicates  via  LEDs and  a  synchronized swim  team  of hybridized
dolphins living in a satellite-linked inlet on the Goa Coast.

Todd:  Repairer  of broken  machines;  has tools  instead  of fingers;
regulation hunk required  by TV network  to stimulate sales  of tie-in
merchandise; able  to telepathically  determine sexual  coefficient of
alien beings; skin can turn to  gold by beaming himself to the  planet
TanFastic.

Karla:  Crew Biologist;  able to  camouflage feeling  with scientific
theories; superior intelligence allows for dominance over all males or
spore-bearing entities.

Me: Token  earthling; prey  to foibles  and pratfalls  of all humanity
(thanks Susan).

Bug: Feathered creature picked up in sympathy from a collapsing  Throm
Nebula; most  likely to  say uncontrolled,  angry things  about fellow
cast and crew members to Entertainment Tonight years after the  series
ends up in  syndication . .  . lack of  Screen Actors Guild  residuals
plus an addiction to cosmetic surgery will provide an impetus.

Susan herself:  Priestess of  the Right  Lobe; erotic  female interest
demanded by TV networks; will devour males if overly excited;  designs
castles  while  sleepwalking; flawless  plastic  skin; thighs  conceal
bevatron guns.

Dusty: Bionic creature from a destroyed Valley planet; disciplinarian;
feeds on X rays; arms contain snakes that will fight her wars.

Ethan: Bearer  of the  Dark Force;  can transmute  feces into uranium;
owns hyperspace  cruiser that  can vanish  and reappear  at any moment
across time, space, and money.

Abe: Wise hermit cast adrift  on asteroid for thousands of  years; has
developed  odd code  languages for  everyday actions;  lonely but  not
bitter; his  heart is  cryogenically frozen,  and he  must search  the
universe pursuing the Thawer.

* * *

Went to the  gym for the  first time today  and my body  feels like an
East German Trabant car running  on linseed oil crashing into  a stack
of burning televisions. The pain!

* * *

Susan's going psycho over an asthmatic Detroit car artist named Emmett
who Michael brought in to do drawings and storyboards. ("We run a very
disciplined little software shop,"  says Ethan. "Detroit really  knows
how to crack the whip!")

I think it would be a very scary thing at this point in Susan's sexual
radicalization  to  be  the subject  of  her  infatuation. Good  luck,
Emmett.

Oh - Emmett's last name  is - Couch - isn't  that a hoot! And his  big
personal beef is  Japanese animation. He  says that SEGA  and Nintendo
are responsible  for the  "subtle but  massive Hello-Kittification  of
North  American animation.  You can  kiss our  Hanna-Barbera heritage
good-bye." How can anybody take this so seriously?

Emmett  has 4,000  manga comics  from Japan.  They're so  violent and
dirty!  The  characters all  look  as if  they're  saying unbelievably
important things - talking to God and the Wizard of the Universe - but
when you translate them, all  they're really doing is making  belching
noises. Susan has discovered in  these manga a rich source  of fashion
ideas.

* * *

The more we realize  our Lenin jokes rankle  Todd, the more the  Lenin
jokes grow out of control. Even Mom got into the act and made "Lenin's
Face" cookies, dropping them  into the office on  her way to work.  We
told Todd to close his eyes and touch them and describe their  texture
- "kind of leathery - kind of dry - kind of . . . chewy - kind of like
. . ." (opens his eyes).

Ethan: "An embalmed syphilitic tyrant?"

"You assholes! Oh, sorry, Mrs. Underwood."

* * *

I learned a  new expression today:  "protein window." Todd  told it to
me.

Apparently, after you  bodybuild, you have  a two-hour time  window in
which your body can suck up amino acids. This is your protein  window.
I was talking to  him and he said,  "Man, I'd like to  talk some more,
but my protein window is closing,"  and he ran off to the  kitchen and
ate a chicken. What a decade this is.

I forgot to eat while my protein window was open. Maybe that's why I'm
in pain.

* * *

Abe mail:

In the future all planets  will have roman numerals after  their names
and  have one  or two  sylable names  that sound  like Dupont  carpet
material from 1966 . . . Norlon IV . . . Erthrea IK  . . . Gil II

* * *

Bug has joined a  "Lego Bobsledding Team" and  has plummeted to a  new
nadir of Nerddom. It's over in  Berkeley - they use Mattel Hot  Wheels
tracks, bet with Monopoly money, have megaphones and everything.  Lego
trophies, too.

* * *

Todd called  me "decadent"  today -  this, after  he discussed protein
windows! I couldn't believe it. He  said I was decadent because I  was
eating Lucky Charms.  He said they  were "symptomatic of  a culture in
decline - sucrose hysteria, you know."

I  said, "But  Todd, Lucky  Charms were  invented during  the Johnson
Administration. Society couldn't have  been more anti-decline than  it
was then. Guns and  butter . . .  I can't believe I'm  even talking to
you seriously about this. This is silly beyond belief."

Anyway, that  was the  seed notion.  Karla and  I wrote  a big list of
"decadent cereals" on the office dry-erase wall:

CAP'N CRUNCH:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

a)  Colonialist  exploiter  pursues  naive  Crunchberry  cultures   to
plunder.  b) Drunkenness,  torture, and  debauchery implicit  in long
ocean cruises.

SUGAR FROSTED FLAKES: Reason this cereal is decadent:

Silky throated military-industrial complex spokestoad "Tony the Tiger"
exploits the need of the undereducated underclass for a paternalistic,
Reagan-like  figure.  A   cautionary  tale  of   the  perils  of   not
indoctrinating at the crÛche level.

TRIX:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Well-meaning   rabbit,   "Trix,"   kept   in   continual   state    of
malnutrition/subservience  by  dominant  children  of  the   parasitic
bourgeoisie. "Silly rabbit, Trix are  for kids" can only be  construed
as a call to class warfare.

LUCKY CHARMS;

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Man with no known adult friends lures children into forest for purpose
of  nutritional (ideological)  seduction. Sprightly  twinkle motif  on
packaging (putatively an allusion to "flavor") are, in fact, metaphors
for soul-deadening sucrose.

RICE KRISPIES:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Snap,  Krackle,  and  Pop thinly  veiled  emblems  for the  Trilateral
Commission.

COCOA PUFFS:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

"I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,"  the demented cackle of Sonny  the Cocoa
Puffs bird/spokesmuppet, is resonant with the insanity inherent in the
needless enslavement of the proletariat.

COUNT CHOCULA - FRANKENBERRY: Reason this cereal is not decadent:

Gay relationship offers  an excellent role  model for this  new era of
diversity. Witty vampire motif  plays on never-ending struggle  of the
oppressed to topple the ruling classes.

* * *

On the same theme, from Abe:

I have settled up on the calorie delivery system of choice: Stouffer's
home sytle  fish fillet  with macaroni  and chees.  Microvaves in  six
minutes; 430 caloreis. Eat two of them and you don't have to think  of
food for 5 hours. Beverage: Tang.

Do you like the Airbus R300?


TUESDAY


Dad got the Delta job!  "My boss is 32 and  a little prick if you  ask
me, but I'm in the real world now." He starts next week. We offered to
take him out to dinner, but he and Mom took a taxi down to II  Fornaio
in Palo Alto. They wanted to get pissed. My parents!

* * *

We had this competition inside the office to come up with  alternative
solutions  as  to  what to  do  with  what is  (to  the  Russians) the
increasingly  embarrassing  and   willfully  nondecomposing  body   of
Vladimir I. Lenin. The suggestions:

SUSAN: "Put  Lenin in  a tuxedo  and use  him as  a seat filler at the
Academy Awards. At the Oscar ceremonies they have this big holding pen
full of attractive people in gowns and tuxes and whenever the  Academy
gives away the awards for achievement in sound and everyone flees into
the lobby, seat fillers are zoomed in so that the cameras scanning the
audience won't register any vacant seats. When Daniel Day-Lewis has to
go to the  bathroom, the cameras  could zoom in  and see a  picture of
Sigourney Weaver sitting next to . . . Lenin!"

DUSTY: "The Reagans would, like, probably rilly enjoy having Lenin  in
their billiard room in Santa Barbara. They could put him inside a fake
suit of armor (which  they no doubt already  own) and then when  Henry
Kissinger came over, Nancy could say,  "Ooh, Henry - who do you  think
we have here tonight with us," and she could skreeeek open the  little
faceplate and there would be - Lenin! - and they could all giggle."

BUG:  "The Lenster's  dead, but  that doesn't  mean he  can't endorse
products, does it? At the very least, Benetton could fit him into  one
of  their sweaters.  That's a  two-page magazine  spread right  there.
Revlon? Len  Babe must  look like  hell after  all these  years. Maybe
Clinique has some nice, youthful goo they could slap onto his face - a
makeover! Makeovers are the official art form of the 1990s, you know."

* * *

Dusty tried to get us to do aerobics in mid-afternoon, but all she got
were six insolent stares. She, like, jogs to Oakland during her  lunch
hour or something. People in the Bay Area are so extreme.

Ethan  is  getting  involved  in  an  Antarctic  banking  scheme:  "No
regulation! "  I bet  if the  Chicago futures  market started  selling
plutonium futures, Ethan would be in like spit.

* * *

Look and Feel and  the gerbil babies make  a real racket now.  The way
they race around the office . . . it's as if the walls are alive.

* * *

It turns out that  three of us visited  the Gap independently of  each
other today, and when  we found out, we  got spooked, and we  analyzed
the Gap, trying to make ourselves feel better about our vague mood  of
consumer victimization.

Susan says the Gap  is smart because they  cut it both ways:  "Kids in
Armpit,  Nebraska, go  into a  Gap with  pictures in  their heads  of
Manhattan, Claudia Schiffer, and the Concorde, while kids in Manhattan
go into the Gap with a  picture in their head of Armpit,  Nebraska. So
it's  as  though  Gap  clothing puts  you  anywhere  except  where you
actually are."

Bug said that the Gap is good "because you can go into a Gap anywhere,
buy anything they sell, and never  have to worry about coming out  and
looking like a dweeb wearing whatever it was you bought there."

Susan responded that the only  problem now is that everybody  shops at
the Gap (or  an isotope of  the Gap) and  so everybody looks  the same
these days. "This is such a punchline because diversity is supposed to
be such a hot modern issue, but to look at a sample crowd of citizens,
you'd never know it."

I figured that  Gap clothing is  what you wear  if you want  to appear
like  you're from  nowhere; it's  clothing that  allows you  to erase
geographical differences and be just like everybody else from anywhere
else.

Dusty agreed, saying this is good  in that it spoke vaguely of  social
democratic notions,  promoting the  illusion of  a unified, consensual
monoculture, "But it's  maybe li'l bit  sad, because this  is all that
democracy's  rilly  been  reduced  to:  the  ability  to  purchase the
illusion of cohesive citizenry for $34.99 (belt included)."

We also figured that Gap clothing  isn't about place, nor is it  about
time, either. Not only does Gap clothing allow you to look like you're
from  nowhere in  particular, it  also allows  you to  look as  though
you're not particularly  from the present,  either. "Just look  at the
recent 'Khakis of the Dead' campaign," said Bug. "By using  Balanchine
and Andy Warhol and  all these dead people  to hustle khakis, the  Gap
permits Gap  wearer to  dissociate from  the now  and enter a nebulous
then, wherever one wants then to be in one's head . . . this big place
that stretches from Picasso's '20s to the hippie '60s."

Todd wasn't there, so we didn't bother asking if Lenin wore khakis.

Karla pointed out that there are more Gaps than just the Gap. "J. Crew
is a thinly veiled Gap. So is Eddie Bauer. Banana Republic is owned by
the same people as the Gap.  Armani A/X is a EuroGap. Brooks  Brothers
is a  Gap for  people with  more disposable  income whose  bodies need
hiding, upscaling, and standardization. Victoria's Secret is a Gap  of
calculated  naughtiness   for  ladies.   McDonald's  is   the  Gap  of
hamburgers. LensCrafters is the Gap of eyewear. Mrs. Fields is the Gap
of cookies. And so on."

Susan said that the unifying theme  amid all of this Gappiness is,  of
course, the computer spreadsheet and the bar-coded inventory. "A jaded
cosmopolite  in the  Upper West  Side buys  an Armpit,  Nebraska-style
worker's shirt  (in 'oatmeal')  and Gap  computers" (doubtless  buried
deep  within  a  deactivated NORAD  command  center  somewhere in  the
Rockies)  "instantaneously  spew  out  the  message  to  Asian garment
manufacturers, 'Armpit worker shirts  are HOT.' Likewise, an  agrarian
soul out there in  Armpit, pining away for  a touch of life  away from
the silo, buys an oxford cloth button-down shirt at the local Gap, and
computerized Gap-funded looms in Asia retool for the preppie revival."

Bug said that, "Deep in your heart, you go to the Gap because you hope
that they'll have  something that other  Gap stores won't  have . .  .
even  the  most  meager  deviation  from  their  highly   standardized
inventoried norm becomes a valued treasure. It's like when you go into
a McDonald's and they're test-marketing Lamb McNuggets, or  something,
and you know that it's an experiment."

Ethan  broke  in  and agreed  wholeheartedly:  "Last  December at  the
Eaton's Centre in  Toronto I  purchased a  'GP 2000'  Commander Picard
like red-and-black sweatshirt that I have yet to see in a Gap anywhere
else.  Was this  a test-marketing  of a  new line  that tanked,  or a
marketing SKU that simply bombed? I ask you."

Then Michael pointed out that a few years ago there was a minor  furor
over the ethics of Dairy  Queen, who sent their franchisees  hamburger
patties that were pseudo-randomly  shaped, with little bumpies  around
the patty's edges, so that burger's consumer would feel more as though
they  were  having a  "handmade"  burger. "In  this  same spirit,  one
wonders if the Gap randomly assigns nonstandardized clothing items  to
its  various  outlets  so  as to  simulate  the  illusion  of regional
variety."

To break  the trance  that was  forming, I  shouted, "Gap  check!" and
everyone in the office had to  guiltily 'fess up to the number  of Gap
garments currently being worn. Karla, the only Gap-free soul, for  the
remainder of the  day wore the  smug, victorious grin  of one who  has
escaped the hungry jaw of  bar-code industrialism. We Gap victims,  on
the other hand,  fast-forwarded to an  entirely McNuggetized world  of
dweeb-free, standardized consumable units.

We got back to work, and  Dusty got to thinking "It would  appear that
to be a dweeb becomes a  political statement - a means of  saying that
'I  choose  not  to  ally  myself  with  the  dark  forces  of amoral,
transnational, bar-coded, GATT-based trade practices.' "

"So let's be dweebs," I said.

"But how to be a dweeb, then, Dan?"

"Well, you could maybe  make your own clothes,"  said Bug, but we  all
said, "Naaaahhh  . .  ." if  for no  other reason  than the  fact that
nobody has free time these days.

"You  could  buy clothing  that  predates computerized  inventorying,"
suggested  Susan,  but then  Bug  replied that  you'd  become a  retro
fashion victim.

In the end, we all figured that the only way to be a dweeb was to have
your mother buy your clothes for you at, like, Sears or JC Penney.

Or have Michael buy them.

* * *

Susan couldn't be  less subtle about  her entrancement with  Emmett if
she tried. And Emmett's so thick, he misses every clue. It's a  wonder
humans ever manage to propagate.

Today for Susan it was hotpants and a Barbarella mesh top with plastic
hoop earrings and a Valley of the Dolls wig. She was like a 1967  Life
magazine  cover. This  outfit, coupled  with the  day's warm  weather,
Todd's working  shirtless, and  with Dusty's  rehearsing Iron  Rose IV
competition practice sessions (Karla  and Susan learning  the poses) 
the office now reeks of sex. This is not natural!


WEDNESDAY


Abe:

Someone scrawled on the bathroom cubicle floor here:

MATES = BRAKES

Below it someone else wrote:

OVERWORK = POLYGAMY

MICROSOFT!  You  know  how  it is  here  -  singles  overwork to  make
themselves shine, but the *Marrieds* become the managers, and move  up
the ladder more quuickly, Elearnor Rigbies need not apply.

Got yesterdays faz.  [I'd faxed along  the instruction kits  to a Lego
9129 Space Station Kit.]  I think yours was the first fax I’ve had  in
years. Faxes are like email from 1987. Thanks.

* * *

Susan walked  in tonight  after dinner  clutching a  handful of crappy
little objects: a bent fork, a bruised apple, a Barbie's head, and the
plastic top from a  Tylenol container. She laid  them out in a  row on
the floor and asked Todd, "Hey, Todd, what's this?"

We all looked at this  sad little row of debris  and none of us had  a
clue.

Todd said, "I Dunno."

She said, "It's a Russian garage sale."

We all said, "Ooooh . . ." expecting Todd to freak out, and he did get
huffy.

"I know, I know," she said preemptively, "the Russians are supposed to
be our friends now.  But face it, Todd  - they'll never get  it right.
Capitalism is something  that's ingrained in  you from birth.  There's
more to developing a market economy than pulling a switch and suddenly
being a capitalist overnight. As a child you need to read about Lucy's
5-cent psychiatry booth in Charlie Brown; game shows; mailing away for
Sea Monkeys - it's all a part of being 'encapitalized.' "

She removed the Barbie head from the lineup of objects: "Probably  too
good."

* * *

Later on, Susan  and Karla were  cackling together. I  asked them what
about and they shot guilty looks at each other.

"Barbies," said Karla.

Susan added, "It's like every girl I know did all this incredibly sick
sex shit  with their  Barbies, and  in the  end the  head and/or limbs
would fall off and  you'd have to hide  her but your Mom  always found
the dismembered Barbie and would  say, 'Gee, honey - what  happened to
Barbie?'"

"Oh God - you'd just be  dying of shame, remembering the debauch  that
landed her in the degraded state."

(More cackling.)

"I remember when my Barbie  discovered my brother's G.I. Joe's,"  said
Karla. "Talk about a spree. She was in fragments within an hour."

"Oh my God - me too!" said Susan.

"Hair gone, too?"

"Yup."

I was  feeling a  bit excluded  and cut  out discreetly,  leaving more
cackles in my wake. How can the  two of them both have done the  exact
same things?

* * *

My body no longer kills me when  I come back from the gym. However,  I
had a moment of total  humiliation today: theoretically my ideal  body
weight  is 172  pounds and  I weigh  153 Ibs.  The woman  at the  gym
calibrated my fat/water/meat/bone  ratios, made an  inward gasp and  I
asked her what was wrong. She said (after a tentative, you-have-cancer
pause), "You're what's technically known as a 'thin fat person.' "

It was so degrading. Not only am I skinny, but what meat I do  possess
isn't meat at all, but lard. I have to burn that off before I can even
begin beefing  up. I  don't even  deserve the  honor of calling myself
carbon-based, let  alone silicon-based  - maybe  I'm based  on one  of
those useless elements like boron that don't do anything.

I'm not telling Karla about this one.


THURSDAY


Word leaked out at the office that I'm a thin fat person (the gym lady
blabbed to Todd) and  I had to endure  a barrage of crude  jokes at my
expense for 14 hours. Todd pulled  me aside and gave me a  canister of
amino acids and a pep talk.

* * *

Dad started work  today at Delta.  He popped into  the Oop! office  to
show his face  on the way  back. Susan, Bug,  and Michael pleaded  for
some access  into the  Delta system  or at  least something they could
start to hack with. Michael  wanted to add ten million  frequent flyer
points to his account: "I want to fly to the South Pole, first  class,
Saudi Airlines, with a sleeper seat, and Reuben Kincaid sleep  goggles
made of passenger pigeon breast feathers."

* * *

Across the street from our house, these little kids were having a tiny
garage sale: a single, spine-worn copy of Cosmopolitan, two filthy Big
Bird toys, a paperback of Future Shock, and a cowboy boot remover.  It
was so depressing - and  eerily similar to Susan's joke  about Russian
garage sales. Karla said, "Susan's right. The Russians'll never  catch
up."

Ethan, over for  a visit, said,  "Au contraire, pal,  they'll probably
outlap us shortly."

* * *

Dusty  was  barfing all  over  the office  sink  when I  came  in this
morning. She said she'd been working out too hard at the gym.

* * *

Abe:

My magnetic card keys fucked upa  nd I couldn't get into the  building
and I gfelt like I'd stopped existing


FRIDAY


Todd burst in this morning: "I'm a Maoist now!"

The rest of us are so  numb from politics now we couldn't  even muster
up the will to shoot him a yawn.

"You do know the three forms of Communism, don't you?"

"No, Todd. But I'm sure you'll let us know."

"Oh good . . .

"First, there's Marxist Leninism.

"Second,  there's  Stalinism  -   well,  actually,  Stalinism  is   an
application, not an operating system. I mean, if you want to wipe  out
40 million people, you install Stalinism on your hard drive. It's like
a political ebola virus."

Susan likened the Stalinist purges to those at IBM.

"Finally, there's Maoism. Maoism is about the total elimination of all
culture.  Anything  that smacks  of  culture is  bad.  Everything from
cocktail umbrellas up to Mozart. It all has to go."

I  said,  "That's  dreadful, Todd  -  culture  is everything.  Without
culture we're nothing. You're telling  me you'd have all existing  Bob
Newhart reruns destroyed!"

"Bob Newhart  romanticizes decadent,  self-absorbed bourgeois  liberal
therapeutic culture. It is redeemable only in that therapy  repudiates
the Church."

"Sounds like a pretty chuckle-free universe to me," said Karla.

"More to life than chuckles, Kar,"  said Todd, frappÝing a can of  Del
Monte pineapple and some form of protein powder in the office blender.
"It's obvious - culture must perish."

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Just that  it must. I'm working  on that one. Oh  look 
there's Dusty down on  the street - we're  off to our posing  seminar.
Gold's just had new daises delivered. Ciao, comrades."

Glurp. Guzzle. Chug. Slam.

"Be sure and flex one for me."

"Can't those two just code?" moaned Michael in a rare show of feeling.
So now the Gang of Two (Boris and Natasha no more) are onto their next
political kick.

* * *

Abe:

Went into Microsoft. Spent most  of the morning entering my  old vynyl
records into a database Iv'e  built. Filemaker Prod by Claris  gets to
Track my CHS tape collection . .

Questions: Can you gusess what this is by the ingeredients?

SD Alcohol

Water

Tween 20

Glycerine

Flavor

Sodium Sacchharine

FD&C Blue No 1

"Made in USA"

Keep guessing. I'll give you the answer later. [Answer: ice Drops icy
mint breath freshener.]

* * *

Dusty was telling us  later on all of  this cool body stuff:  about an
aerobic  drug, RPO,  that enhances  the body's  ability to  metabolize
oxygen. Rumor has it a French bicycling team all died of heart attacks
using it. And she discussed how too many steroids make women grow hair
and can make users "acromegliac" - their craniums distort.

Oh -  Dusty barfed  up whole  Lake Superiors  of muck  all morning.  I
wonder what's up with that.

Some new diet regime, doubtless.

* * *

Ethan says Type-A personalities have  a whole subset of diseases  that
they, and  only they,  share, and  the transmission  vector for  these
diseases is the door close button on elevators that only get pushed by
impatient, Type-A people. Ethan  pushes these buttons with  his elbow,
now. I'm starting lo worry about all of us.

In the spirit of Ethan's neurosis, we made a dry wall list of keyboard
bill tons we would like to see:

PLEASE

THANK YOU

FUCK OFF

DIE

OOPS . . . MY MISTAKE

DO SOMETHING COOL AND SURPRISE ME

* * *

Later, everyone  got in  a debate  over whether  or not Fisher Price's
minifigs were cooler than Lego's. The debate went onto the drywall:

FISHER PRICE minifigs versus LEGO minifigs

Fisher Price Minifigs:

Plus: limbless figures give children a feeling of helplessness

Minus:  faces resemble those of beloved but unfunny cartoon characters
in Family Circus

Plus: generic, Gap-like outfits

Minus: height/weight-disproportionate  bodies imply  eating disorders:
bad role model for millennial youth yearning to be functional

Lego Minifigs:

Plus: interchangeable, unisex hairdos

Minus: clawlike hands are scary and potentially traumatizing

Plus: bodies can be incorporated into architecture

Minus:  bad fashions

* * *

Dad hates his boss, "the  32-year-old prick." "He's a humorless  Total
Quality  Management  freak  who  uses  Anthony  Robbins  pep  talks to
motivate me into learning humiliatingly simple input codes. Hell,  I'm
younger than him in everything but body."

Dad's only  one-third the  way up  the food  chain in  his division at
Delta, and it must be really degrading for him. Mom said, "I know your
father wanted a job badly, but maybe this isn't his cup of tea.  Can't
you  people teach  him C++  a bit  faster?" We  had to  tell her  that
learning doesn't scale. But  the idea of Dad  being a hip and  with-it
coder is one that appeals to all of us in the office. Who knows  where
this will lead.


FRIDAY (one week later)


Dad  quit his  job. He  showed up  at the  office around  two in  the
afternoon to tell me. Michael  promptly gave him some C++  manuals and
put him in an empty chair in  the corner and said, "Time to learn  for
real, Mr. Underhill."

Mom was P-I-S-S-E-D off. But even still, she knew the Delta thing  was
going nowhere. She figures Dad's just caught in this weird demographic
glitch: too young to retire; too old to learn new tricks. She  figures
Dad's around for the  long haul, so she  told Dad two new  rules she's
made up for day-to-day living:

1) I'm never making you lunch.

2) You're never allowed to come shopping with me.

Other changes:  the Gang  of Two  traipsed in  this morning.  "We have
ceased being  Maoists. We  are now  ideologically basing  ourselves on
Product Theory."

Being numb from all of their flip-flop - and from extreme politics  in
general -  once again  nobody bothered  to look  up. "Gee kids, that's
nice. See Star Trek last night?"

Todd  added, "The  modern economy  isn't about  the redistribution  of
wealth - it's about the redistribution of time."

His eyeballs were rolling inside  his head with pleasure. "Instead  of
battling  to control  rubber boot  factories, the  modern post-Maoist
wants to battle for your  45 minutes of daily discretionary  time. The
consumer electronics  industry is  all about  lassoing your  time, not
your money  - that  time-greedy ego-part  of the  brain that  wants to
maximize a year's worth of year."

"But that," I said, "is exactly what Ethan believes."

Silence.

Ethan shot me a self-satisfied glance, and the ex-Gang of Two went  to
work without much ado.

"Really," said Michael, "I hope this here is the end of politics."

* * *

Karla said to me later on, "Did you know that Michael spends one  hour
a  day  on  e-mail  talking to  someone  named  BarCode  who lives  in
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada? Has he ever mentioned this to you?"

"Michael discussed his interior life?"

Todd overheard and added, "You know, if I read one more article  about
cybersex I am going to explode," to which Dusty said, "Now, Toddy,  if
you shoot one more  vial of 'roids you  will explode." Which shut  him
up.

But Todd's right.  The media  has gone  berserk with  Net-this and Net
that. It's a bit much. The Net is cool, but not that cool.

* * *

I thanked Michael for  being nice to my  Dad, letting him hang  around
the office and that kind of stuff, but Michael said, "Nice? I  suppose
so.  But  once  he  gets the  basics  down,  he'll  make an  excellent
representative for Oop!,  don't you think?  All that silver  hair, and
best of all, no dandruff."

* * *

Two pounds of solid rippling muscle gained this week! Maybe. It  could
have been my extended visit to the water fountain before the  weigh-in
that tilted the scales upward.

* * *

I had to drop off some diskettes at Todd and Dusty's tonight. I walked
up  to  the  house  and  through the  main  window  I  could  see Todd
slathering Dusty  with barbecue-tinted  goo as  she was  standing on a
posing dais in front of a full-length mirror, happy as a clam. He  was
brushing Dusty's  tummy; I  peeked through  the bougainvillea, thought
twice about  interrupting  their ritual,  and  drove into  the  flower
scented, gasoline-powered California night.


SATURDAY


Karla and Dusty disappeared around ten this morning, returning  around
noon, with Dusty  blubbering and her  words spilling out  of her -  to
Todd and to everybody else in the office - that she's pregnant.

"Oh fuck," said Dusty, "I've done  so much weird shit to my  body that
I'll birth a grapefruit." She was howling. She was a real mess.

We made  the usual  "Version 2.0"  jokes you  have to  make whenever a
techie  gets pregnant,  and cooled  her down.  Ethan called  a doctor
friend on his cellular phone and bullied him out of his golf game  and
made him give Dusty a pep talk.  And we all had to promise to  come to
the  ultrasound with  her. Todd  bailed out  and visited  the gym  all
afternoon.

It was actually a lovely, lovely day and the sun was hot and we walked
down the streets, and the colors were so exotic and bright and the air
so quiet and we felt alive and living.


MONDAY


''The petty bourgeois ideal  of withdrawal into Jeffersonian  autonomy
is no  longer sustainable  in a  simultaneous, globalized  environment
with  the asynchronous,  instantaneous transfer  of capital  from one
cashpoint to another."

"Just piss off and get into the car, Dusty."

Karla and I drove with Dusty  to her clinic in Redwood City.  She's so
convinced her baby is going to be a grapefruit. I foresee seven and  a
half more months  of extreme anxiety  and ultrasounds. On  the way out
she said, "It's leaving me, you know."

"What's leaving you, Dusty?"

Dusty was looking out the back  window of the van. "Ideology. Yes  - I
can feel it leaving my body. And I don't care. And I don't miss it."

We  drove a  while -  caught all  the red  lights -  they were  doing
construction  on Camino  Real. At  stoplight number  seventeen, Dusty
turned around, looked out the  Microbus's rear window one final  time,
and whispered, "Bye."

She then turned to Karla and  roared, "Off to Burger King, now!  Three
fishwiches,  double tartar  sauce, large  fries, and  a Big  Gulp-type
beverage. Are you with me, kids?  I'm rilly, rilly hungry, and if  you
tell Todd we  went to Burger  King, I'll grind  you both into  Chicken
McNuggets."

"Revolutionary, babe. We are there. Whalers ahoy!"

* * *

Poor Todd - "Pops" - he was in a daze all day, and vanished off to the
gym around six.  I went out  the door to  follow him because  maybe he
needed to talk, but instead of going to get into his Supra, he  walked
down the street, and so I walked behind him, wondering what it must be
like to be hit with the notion of spawning. He then surprised me a few
blocks later by entering a small Baptist church. I waited a minute and
then I followed him into the church, feeling the small whoosh of  cool
interior air on my face, and I walked down the center of the aisle and
sat next to Todd who  was praying in a pew.  He looked up at me  and I
said, "Hi," and sat down next to him.

He wasn't sure what  to do with his  hands. I hummed, "Stopped  into a
church . . ."

He said, "Huh?"

I said, '"California Dreaming' . . . the song."

He said, "Right."

I said, "Here's a deal: I'm going to sit right here, right beside you,
and I am going  to dream. And you  . . . well  . . . why  not continue
praying?"

"Right'' he said. And he prayed and I dreamed.

* * *

Oh - Ethan finished his freeway.


6

Chyx


MONDAY

(One week later)


From behind the fabric-covered  disassemblable wall partitions of  our
office I heard  Emmett mumble to  Susan: "Hey, Sooz  - want to  go out
tonight?"

"I don't know, Emm . . ."

"Hey, it'll be great. We can listen in on cellular calls with my Radio
Shack Pro-46 scanner - I altered its megahertz range with a  soldering
gun - or maybe listen to some crank calls I have on tape - hack a  few
passwords. Grab some calzones . . ."

Susan played it cool: "Uh huh - I'll, umm, think on it."

But the moment Emmett was out of sight, Susan instant-mailed Karla and
they  scurried  down to  the  street for  a  debriefing, Susan's  hoop
earrings  jangling like  Veronica Lodge's  tambourine. Karla  told me
afterward that  Susan said  it was  the best  date proposal she'd ever
had. "Dream date!"

* * *

No conversation is private in our small office, and every day I listen
in on what is becoming a female bond-o-thon.

Today, however, Karla,  Susan, and Dusty  really broke through  a wall
into  a  new level.  It  started out  simply  enough, with  all  of us
discussing  the  way that  food  products in  recent  years have  been
cloning  themselves  out  into eighteen  versions  of  themselves. For
example, old Coke, new Coke, diet Coke, old Coke without caffeine, new
Coke without caffeine, Coke with pulpy bits, Coke with cheese . . . We
tried to figure out the roots of product multiplication and we decided
it was peanut butter manufacturers who decades ago invented chunky and
smooth versions of themselves.

Then things  went out  of control.  Karla suddenly  remembered to tell
Susan about how Fry's doesn't sell tampons, and Susan got angrier  and
angrier, and the conversation became entirely tamponic.

"I don't know why  they don't sell them.  If nothing else, they're  so
damned expensive the profit margin must be like 1,000 percent."

She phoned to fact-check that Fry's indeed did not sell them.

Karla said, "This  woman Lindy that  I met at  last week's geek  party
works at Apple, and she told  me that in all of the  women's bathrooms
there they  have these  clear Lucite  dispensers of  tampons that  are
free.  Now that's  corporate intrusion  into employee's  lives that  I
could live with."

They all agreed tampons gratis are the acme of hip.

"Apple must be run by a  woman," said Dusty. "Maybe it is  and they're
hiding it to stay on good terms with the Japanese."

Karla said,  "Wha .  . .  ?" and  Dusty replied,  " Oh, come on, babe,
Japanese businessmen  are notoriously  adverse to  accepting authority
from  women,  no  matter  how  powerful  they  are  in  their American
companies."

Conversation  lapsed into  a discussion  of Apple's  charisma deficit
crisis, but then soon enough returned to tampons, and for me it was so
embarrassing, like watching Mutual  of Omaha's Wild Kingdom  with your
mom, and suddenly a Summer's Eve commercial comes on, and Mom scurries
out  of  the  room and  you're  not  sure why  you're  supposed  to be
embarrassed, only that everybody is.

Karla said, "But the bad thing about the free tampons at Apple is that
they're Playtex, not O.B."

All three in unison: "Designed by a woman gynecologist..."

Susan said, "Playtex suck because they just get longer, not wider .  .
. When I bleed, it's not a vertical thing . . . it's 360 degrees.  And
it's so freaky because when you put it in, it's this innocuous  little
lipstick size, and then when you take it out there's this long  cotton
rope at the end of the string! I'm afraid it's going to hook my uterus
and I'll accidentally drag it out!"

Todd sent me an  instant mail, which blinked  on my screen, saying,  I
can't believe what I'm hearing.

Dusty  said,  "O.B.'s rock!  But  I guess  not  every powerful  female
executive is comfortable enough with her body to put her finger  (fake
'50s housewife voice) you know where."

They all laughed ironically.

Susan said, "I think that the  lamest excuse women use about why  they
don't use O.B. is  because they don't want  their index finger to  get
dirty . . . I mean whenever  you pay for something with a dollar  bill
your hand gets filthy, but  does that stop them from  making purchases
with dollar bills?"

"They need to make tampons for those 'chunky' days . . . 'light'  days
panty-liners blow!" said Karla.

This is obviously a universal tampon concern judging by the enthusiasm
that ensued.

Todd instant-mailed me, Women have *chunky* days? Are guys supposed to
know this stuff? I am experiencing fear.

I was  trying to  think of  a "guy"  equivalent of  chunkiness, but  I
couldn't, and meanwhile, the three  of them just kept rocking  on, and
Todd, Bug, and I just buried our heads deeper into our work areas.

Dusty said, "Gawd . . . I was rilly, rilly freaked out the first  time
I had chunks. No one ever tells you about that in, like, school or  at
home or anything.  You see those  Playtex commercials and  they've got
this watery blue liquid and that's what you're expecting, and then one
day  you  look  at  your  pad  and  there  are  .  .  .  chunks there.
Grotacious."

Karla, ever logical, said, "I knew intellectually it had to be uterine
lining, but I  envisioned the lining  as being thin,  wispy . .  . not
like chunks of liver."

Dusty figured, "We, as women, also need to invent some alternative  to
that  adhesive they  use on  pads. I  wouldn't even  wear them  if it
weren't for chunks. It rilly bothers me to think of these chunks  that
want  to  migrate  south,  but  they  can't  because  of  this  Tampon
Roadblock. So I always  wear pads on like  the second day, but  I hate
them. It's like getting a drive-by waxing."

Karla  suggested,  "If  they  ever  made  'chunky-style'  tampons,  we
wouldn't need to ever wear pads."

Susan said, "I'll bet you anything Fry's doesn't carry tampons because
they're misogynist  and afraid  of adult,  bleeding women  . .  . they
can't accept the non-Barbie, fully-functional female!"

Karla and Dusty: "Right on, Sister!"

Susan said, "Yet  again men win:  with condom hysteria  and semen they
monopolize the notion of sacred body fluids. Women lose again. I  want
pads to be to the 1990s  what condoms were to the 1980s.  Destigmatize
the flow!"

* * *

Susan had the idea  to start up a  support group for Valley  women who
code. She's calling it Chyx and has put word out on the Net. She said,
"I was going to spell it  'Chycks' but then 'Chyx' sounds more  like a
bioengineering firm, and that's kind of cool."

Prerequisites for joining Chyx (which makes you a "Chyk") are "fluency
in two or more  computer languages, a vagina,  and a belief that  Mary
Tyler  Moore as  Mary Richards  in a  slinky pantsuit  is the  worldly
embodiment of God."

Susan  will probably  be swamped.  Karla and  Dusty have  Chyx member
numbers 0002 and 0003 respectively. They have been given a full set of
photocopied writings of Brenda Laurel.

* * *

This reminds me, the lower your employee number down here, the  higher
your status - and the more likely you are to hold equity.

* * *

Later on  in the  day, our  lives devolved  into an  Itchy &  Scratchy
cartoon. We all decided we needed sunlight - we've all been working so
hard lately and our internal clocks are somewhere in the Eastern  Bloc
nations - so we went for a drive in the Microbus up through  Stanford,
up to the linear particle  accelerator that passes underneath the  280
by the Sand Hill Road exit.

It was the core team from the old Redmond geek house: Karla,  Michael,
Todd, Bug, and  Susan - as  well as Ethan.  Dusty didn't come  because
everything makes her sick these days. She's set her workstation up  by
the bathroom door. She craves instant "Mr. Noodles," and is constantly
sending Todd out for  food runs to Burger  King. Michael gave her  his
collection of international airline sickness bags as a  "fertilization
present."

Emmett left  early, no  doubt to  groom himself.  Anatole came by, but
left. We're mad at him because he still hasn't organized an Apple tour
for us, and he said he would, weeks ago.

Anyway, Bug and Susan and Todd and Ethan got in this arcane discussion
on the relative merits of QWERTY versus Dvorak keyboards and it got U
G-L-Y. They were screaming, and I  swear, the four of them were  going
to strangle each other with seat belts and burn each other's eyes  out
with the cigarette  lighter and drag  each other raw  on the pavement,
making sick  red smudges  along the  neat and  clean California  State
white lines.

Finally I booted them out at Pasteur and Sand Hill Drive, then drove a
quarter mile up, letting them feel stupid and walk it off. I  screamed
out the window, "Stop the madness!"

Anyway,  after "our  coders" had  their little  walk, they  were much
better behaved. Then Todd yelled "Shogun," not "shotgun," to claim the
front passenger  seat, but  then Susan  said only  the word  "shotgun"
counted, and it turned  all Itchy & Scratchy  again, and Bug ended  up
nabbing the shotgun seat.

* * *

We drove to the Sand Hill  Road exit (location of the dreaded  venture
capital mall) west off the 280, into the paddocks and oaks and  horsey
area, parked the  bus, and walked  across a Christmas  tree farm to  a
Cyclone fence surrounding the Stanford Linear Accelerator, a structure
that resembles a mile-long rear side of a 7-Eleven -  sandstone-tinted
aluminum siding with  tasteful landscaping. Not  much to look  at, but
let  me say,  extremity of  shape certainly  does imply  extremity of
function. And whenever you see no windows, there's something scary  or
beguiling going on inside. No humans. Stepford.

Needless to say, there  were fuck off and  die warning signs from  the
Department  of  Energy  bolted  onto  the  wire  fencing  around   the
accelerator's perimeter. Ethan  said, "Why is  it that everything  I'm
truly interested in has the words 'Warning: U.S. Department of Energy'
stamped all over it?"

* * *

Today was one of those anything's-possible days: blue skies and fluffy
clouds; smooth-flowing freeways; all plant life on 24-hour chlorophyll
shift after three days of  rain. So alive! Two Cooper's  hawks circled
in the winds above, wings immobile  for ten minutes on end (we  timed,
of course) hunting mice and gophers and squirrels. Serene.

And then we went into the mountains, into the greenery, so dense, with
the sun dappling through, walking across a small wooden bridge and  we
had to remind  ourselves we weren't  dead and not  in heaven. We  came
away from it feeling that life really is good, and with our  circadian
rhythms somewhat restored to Pacific Standard Time.

On the way back we drove past Xerox PARC on Coyote Hill Road, and  Bug
swooned only mildly. He now no longer foams when he imagines how Xerox
could be the biggest company  on Earth if they'd only  understood what
they had back in the 1970s.

After that, we pulled into  the Stanford Shopping Center mall  to cool
off and shop for short pants. Amid the Neiman Marcus, the Williams and
Sonoma,  the  NordicTrack, and  the  Crabtree &  Evelyn  franchises we
discussed subatomic particles. At Stanford Laboratory they're  hunting
down the magic particles that hold together the universe. There's  one
particle that's still unfound. I asked the carload if anyone knew what
it was.

"The Top Quark," answered Michael.

"Duct tape," answered Susan, scowling at Todd.

* * *

Stanford  is  so  weird.  They  have  bumper  stickers  like:  "I  LUV
ANTARCTICA,"  "I love  Cellos," and  "Calligraphy love  for letter  or
verse."

* * *

The day taught us one thing: We all agreed we need to take a bit  more
time out for personal development and simple rest. Even Ethan conceded
this necessity, albeit by asking us if we could take shifts to do  it.
We had to tell him that leisure, like intelligence, doesn't scale.

Everyone immediately bailed out of work, but I headed to the office to
play with Oop! for a while to work on my space station. Karla drove up
to San Francisco to help  Laura from Interval paint her  apartment the
same color yellow as Mary  Tyler Moore's Mustang convertible. Bug  was
going to go help, too.

* * *

Around 1:30 a.m. the  door opened and I  thought it was Karla,  but it
was Bug, saying Karla  and Laura had gone  out for a stag  night after
they ran out of paint.

Bug  came in  and sat  down in  the chair  next to  me and  we had  a
conversation. The lights were low - just a few monitors and a light by
the coffee  | machine.  Bug said  - not  even to  me, I  think, but to
himself, "I was just in this nightclub downtown, Dan. I felt  awkward.
I'm not used to nightclubs and I don't like cigarette smoke or the way
people pose and get phony in clubs."

I realized that Bug had dressed up for the night, or rather, had  made
an effort to  coordinate his wardrobe.  Also, Dusty has  him signed up
with a  trainer at  a gym,  and he's  not looking  so much like he was
assembled from the leftover  bits of the Lego  box as he used  to. For
that matter, Karla and I are both looking better assembled  ourselves,
these days. The gym.

"And so anyway," Bug continued, "there was this picture frame - shaped
thing hanging from the ceiling - part of the club's decoration - and I
thought I was  looking into a  mirror and so  I reached up  my hand to
move my hair, and of course, my image on the other side was doing  the
same thing. And then suddenly I  realized - we realized - at  the same
moment, that we were two different people and both went 'Whoa!"

"And?"

"And I realized  that maybe it's  even possible, however  briefly, and
without even much say in the matter, to become someone else, or to  be
handed  another body,  in a  blink of  an eye.  Is that  called 'body
invasion'? Karla would know."

There was a quiet patch here - just the hums of the computers; a blink
sound from someone's system receiving e-mail. Bug continued: "And so I
met Jeremy."

"Well good for you."

"It's not love," he added quickly. "But we are going to see each other
again. But tell me, Daniel - I mean, I knew you before you knew Karla.
Did you ever think then that love was never going to happen to you?"

"Pretty much."

"And when it did happen, how did you feel?"

"Happy. And then I  got afraid that it  would vanish as quickly  as it
came. That it  was accidental -  that I didn't  deserve it. It's  like
this very, very nice car crash that never ends."

"And where are you now?"

I thought: "I think the fear  part's leaving. I don't know what  comes
next. But the love hasn't gone, no."

Bug looked perplexed and happy, but sort of sad, too. He said, "I used
to care about how other people thought I led my life. But lately  I've
realized that most people are too preoccupied with their own lives  to
give anybody else even the scantiest of thoughts." He looked up at me:
"Oh,  not you  and Karla  and the  rest of  the crew.  But people  in
general. My family's from Idaho.  Coeur d'Alene. A beautiful place  as
ever there was, but believe me, Dan, it's hard to be different there."

As usually happens in our office, he began to fidget with Lego bricks.
"It starts out young -  you try not to  be different just to  survive 
you try to be just like everyone  else - anonymity becomes reflexive 
and then one day you wake up and you've become all those other  people
- the others  - the something  you aren't. And  you wonder if  you can
ever be what it is you really  are. Or you wonder if it's too  late to
find out."

I had  no idea  what to  say. So  I listened,  which is often the best
idea.  And  I  realized Bug  had  driven  all the  way  down  from San
Francisco just to find a person to tell this to.

"Anyway, I never talk about myself,  and you guys never ask, and  I've
always respected that. But there comes a time when you either speak or
forfeit what comes next."

He got up. "I'm driving back up the Peninsula. Home. I just wanted  to
talk to somebody."

I said, "Good luck, Bug," and he winked at me.

Sassy!


TUESDAY


Day of coding. It felt really Microsofty for some reason.

Midday, Karla went  walking with Mom  and Misty, and  the two of  them
returned  absolutely  comatose with  boredom.  I have  never  seen two
people with less chemistry. I just don't understand how I can love two
people so much, yet have them be so indifferent to each other.

Oh, and Misty’s  getting really F-A-T,  even though Mom  has her on  a
"slimming diet." The  neighbors are feeding  her scraps because  she's
irresistible. So Mom had to have a dog tag made up that says,  "PLEASE
DON'T FEED ME, I'M ON A DIET." Karla said Mom should have millions  of
the things engraved and she could make a fortune selling them all over
America, to people.

But, oh, does Misty waddle now!

* * *

Smoggy day  down in  the Valley.  Rusty orange.  Depressing. Like  the
1970s.

* * *

Susan told us about her first date  with Emmett last night, at a  Toys
R-Us superstore in  San Francisco. Emmett  bought himself a  Star Trek
Romulan  Warbird. Susan  bought some  infamous "softer,  less crumbly
Play-Doh" as well as an obligatory Fun Factory, a Bug Dozer as well as
a container  of "Gak"  - a  water-based elastic  goo-type play  object
endorsed by Nickelodeon and called by all of us, "the fourth state  of
matter."

Afterward they  parked on  the Page  Mill Road  and monitored cellular
phone calls.

* * *

Susan’s still obsessing that Fry's doesn't sell tampons. I think Fry's
had better look out.

* * *

Todd's given  up on  trying to  be political  because Dusty  no longer
cares about the subject and, it would appear, nor does anybody at  the
office. It was a fun ride while it lasted. He talks to his parents  up
in  Port Angeles  more now,  too. You  can imagine  how his  religious
parents wigged out when  he told them he  was a Communist. They  still
believe in Communists.

* * *

Ethan and I went out for drinks  to the BBC bar in Menlo Park  after a
"Trip to Europe" (ten hours of coding; so much for yesterday's leisure
dictum). We both  commented on a  sense of unrest  in the Valley.  The
glacial pace of the Superhighway's development is absolutely maddening
to the Valley's citizens, their mouths fixed in expressions of relaxed
pique  amid  the  LensCrafters   franchises,  the  garages,  the   S&L
buildings, and the science parks. Nonetheless, Broderbund,  Electronic
Arts,  and everybody  else here  grows and  grows, so  it's all  still
happening. Just more slowly than we'd expected.

I said, "Remember, Ethan, these  are geeky, on-demand type people  who
suddenly  have to  spend their  lives as  if they're  waiting for  an
Aeroflot flight out of  Vladivostok - a flight  that may or may  never
take off." Then I remembered  that we're all "Russia'd out"  after the
political turmoil of the past few weeks and wish I'd not said that.

Ethan was glum: "CD ROM design is beginning to feel like aloe  product
sales chains and pyramid schemes."

"Ethan - you're our money guy. Don't talk like that!"

"No  one wants  to pay  for the  highway's infrastructure  - it's  too
expensive. In the  old days, the  government simply would  have footed
the  bill, but  they don't  do much  pure research  any more.  Unless
there's a  war, but  then it's  hard to  see how  Bullwinkle and Rocky
interactive CD products  will help us  crash an enemy.  Fuck. We don't
even have enemies anymore."

The  music was  playing a  comforting old  Ramones song,  "I Wanna  Be
Sedated," and we were feeling maudlin.

"Companies want to  be signposts, toll  booths, rest stops  - anything
except actual asphalt.  Everyone's afraid of  spending heaps of  money
and becoming the Betamax version of the I-way. And I don't think a war
is something that would speed up development. I don't think it's  that
kind of technology. This thing won't be real until every house in  the
world has had a little ditch dug up in its front lawn, and an  optical
fiber installed. Until then, it's all Fantasy Island."

I guess he was remembering how long  it took for him to build his  own
Lego freeway in the office's Lego garden.

We reordered Harvey Wallbangers (1970s night).

"It's just  so strange  to see  this sense  . .  . of stalematedness,"
Ethan continued, remembering  the Atari boom  era. "This was  the land
where all you ever asked for was  all you were ever going to get  - so
everyone asked Big."  He was getting philosophical. "This is the  land
where architecture becomes irrelevant even before the foundations  are
poured -  a land  of sustainable  dreams that  pose as  unsustainable;
frighteningly intelligent/depressingly  rich." He  twisted a  cocktail
napkin into a rope.  "Well," he said, "the  magic comes and goes."  He
chugged a Wallbanger. "But in the end it always returns."

* * *

Later on  Ethan then  became excited  and pulled  a crumpled  sheet of
thermal fax  paper from  his pocket.  It was  his list of "Interactive
Hiring  Guidelines"  he  had laser-printed  and  faxed  throughout the
Valley, like  one of  those "Thank  God It's  Friday" posters, and was
returned to him, about 17th generation. He felt proud to have  entered
the realm of apocrypha and urban legendary.

The Eight Laws of Multimedia Hiring:

1) Always ask a person, "What have you shipped in the last two years?"
That's all you should really ask. If they haven't shipped anything  in
the last two years, ask, "So what's your excuse?"

2) The  "job-as-life phase"  lasts for  maybe ten  years. Nab 'em when
they're young, and make sure they never grow old.

3) You  can't trust  a dog  that's bitten  you. You  wouldn't want  to
employ someone who  you could steal  away from another  company in the
middle of a project.

4)  The  industry  is  made  up  of  either  gifted  techies  or smart
generalists - the people who were bored with high school - the sort of
people the teacher was always telling, "Now, Abe, you could get As  if
you really  wanted to.  Why don't  you just  apply yourself?" Look for
these people - the talented  generalists. They're good as project  and
product managers.  They're the  same people  who would  have gone into
advertising in 1973.

5) One psycho for  every nine stable people  in the company is  a good
ratio. Too many maniacally-driven people can backfire on you. Balanced
people are better for the long-term stability of the company.

6) Start-up companies beware: kids fresh out of school invariably bail
out after a few years and join the big tech monocultures in search  of
stability.

7) People are most ripe for pilfering from tech monocultures in  their
mid- to late 20s.

8) The upper age limit of  people with instincts for this business  is
about 40. People who were over  30 at the beginning of the  late 1970s
PC revolution missed  the boat; anyone  older is like  a Delco AM  car
radio.

I suggested he plug the text into the Net in comp.hiring. slavery, and
see what other laws get tacked  on, but he got offended and  said that
because he had  the paper version  that these were  "THE LAWS," and  I
realized there was no fighting either it or him.

"Ethan," I said, "thermal paper, I mean, how 1991."

* * *

Another super-long day. It's 6:00 a.m.  I think I see the sky  pinking
up. Oh God - dawn.


WEDNESDAY


Susan is tormenting poor Emmett  now by ignoring him.  Poor  Emmett is
feeling "pumped and dumped."

Susan's switched  off her  instant mail,  and whenever  moonstruck Mr.
Couch visits her  workstation she rations  out her words,  saying that
she's  too busy  coding and/or  too busy  working on  her Chyx  'zine,
called "Duh . . . ," to speak with him.

Susan set up a Chyx Internet address and forecasts at least a  hundred
Chyx signed up  on the Net  by next week.  She wants to  set up forums
about Fry's  not selling  tampons being  a metaphor  for men's fear of
women,  new  product  ideas,   Barbie  cults,  and  so   forth.  She's
obsessively into it.

"I could  structure the  forums and  bulletin boards  like an issue of
Sassy . . .  there'd be comments, and  a place to ask  other women for
advice . . . what's that column called?"

"Zits and stuff," Karla promptly replies.

"Oh yeah. Well, I wouldn't  call it that, but something  like personal
narratives: 'IT HAPPENED TO ME'."

"I was the  best programmer in  my division and  that jerk Tony  got a
promotion!"

"It happened to me: I dated  a marketing manager and he turned  out to
be an asshole!"

"It happened to me:  I was the only  girl in Silicon Valley  and still
couldn't get a date!" (Susan).

"It happened  to me  - I  wrote a  Melrose Place scriptwriting program
that generated vibrant, nonlinear, marginally controversial plot lines
and made a fortune!"

Susan's on a crusade. Or a rampage.

* * *

Karla printed  out the  following letters  and posted  them all on her
cubicle. They're HAL 9000's letters from 2001:

ATM

HIS

MEM

LIF

FLX

CNT

COM

NUC

VEH

* * *

Ethan flamed some of Bug's code this afternoon. "Jesus, Bug - what are
you making  here -  hot dogs?  You've put  in everything including the
snout . . . everything but the squeal."

Bug told him to piss off, and who does he think he is . . . Bill?  The
old Bug would  have held a  local McDonald's hostage  with a sawed-off
carbine. Good for Bug.

* * *

We were discussing  computer-aided animation and  we realized that  it
would have  taken every  computer in  the world  then in  existence to
morph Elizabeth Montgomery's nose into a twinkle-twinkle on  Bewitched
- "ENIACS and all that," said Karla. "You could do it on a Mac now. In
two minutes."

* * *

Jeremy came over this afternoon, and he's Bug's double. Twinsville.

He showed  up at  the front  door of  the office  and all  seven of us
stampeded foyer-ward like 101 Dalmatians to gawk out the front  window
as he and Bug walked away to Jeremy's Honda.

Karla said the  relationship had to  be somewhat serious  because "you
know how hard  it is to  lure anybody down  here from San  Francisco."
She's right. You could offer  San Franciscans a free Infiniti  J30 and
they'd still have  some excuse not  to drive 25  measly miles down  to
Silicon Valley.

Actually, there's a slight back-and-forth snobbery between the  Valley
and the City. The Valley thinks  the City is snobby and decadent,  and
the City thinks the Valley  is techishly boring and uncreative.  But I
can see these impressions starting to blur. This all sounds like  that
old Joan Baez song, "One Tin Soldier."

* * *

While taking Misty on a walk with Mom through the Stanford  Arboretum,
Mom  was telling  me about  this conversation  she heard  between two
people with Alzheimer's down at the seniors home where she volunteers:

"A: How you doin'?

B: Pretty good. You?

A: How you doin' ?

B: I'm okay.

A: So you're doing okay?

B: How you doin'?"

I laughed, and she asked me why, and I said, "It reminds me of America
Online chat rooms!" She demanded an example, so I gave her one:

A: Hey there.

B: Hi,A.

A: Hi, B

C: Hi

B: Look, C's here.

A: Hi,C!

B: CCCCCCCCCC

C: A + B = A + B

A: Gotta go

B: Bye,A

C: Bye, A

B: Poo

C: Poo poo

"This," I said, "is  the much touted, transglobal,  paradigm-shifting,
epoch-defining dialogue to which  every magazine on earth  is devoting
acres of print."

* * *

Oh - Misty's fur was covered in burrs, and it took us fifteen  minutes
to remove them.

* * *

Mom really has all  of this new energy  now that she swims  every day.
And her confidence has swelled enormously since winning the swim meet.
She's been restacking her rock pile with extra vigor.


THURSDAY


Astounding gossip meltdown: Susan and poor, meek little Emmett  Couch,
our manga-phobic storyboarder, went nuclear.  It was SO embarrassing  
right in the middle of the office Emmett started bellowing, "You  just
think of me as a piece of meat, Susan - I'm not sure I like that."

And Susan said back, "I don't call you a piece of meat. I call you  my
fuck toy."

(Susan surveys  room for  rebuttal, we  all sit  there, pretending  to
work, our  eyes like  sad-eyed velvet  painting waifs,  staring at our
keyboards.)

"Well, I'm not sure I like that," Emmett says.

"Well,  what  do  you  want  -   to  take  it  further?  You  want   a
relationship?''

"Well . . ."

"Stop sniveling. I thought the deal was, we just have sex and leave it
at that. Don't annoy me. I have to get back to work."

So Emmett  went back  to work.  We, of  course, were  silent, but  the
instant-mail was flying on each other's screens. Blink blink blink. We
were riveted. Poor Emmett's in  love, and Susan doesn't want  that. Or
maybe she likes this type of relationship. People always get what they
need. She's truly earned her stud medal on this one.

* * *

I went to Price-Costco. My weekly job is to purchase in-office snacks,
all set up in an IKEA shelf unit in the kitchen. Everything costs 75¢.

Mr. Noodles (for Dusty)

Pop-Tarts

hot chocolate mix

Cup•A•Soup

granola bars

Chee•tos

Famous Amos cookies

Fig Newtons

microwave popcorn

BBQ potato chips

* * *

Karla, Bug, and I went on  a tour of "Multi-Media Gulch" later  in the
afternoon. What a joke. There's nothing there! Or rather, there's lots
of  stuff  around the  north  end of  the  Bay Bridge,  in  around the
warehousey  neighborhood  - many  companies  doing cool  things  - but
there's no public interface, so you might as well be in any  warehouse
district anywhere. No T-shirt stands.

* * *

We met  up with  Jeremy, who,  as it  turns out,  is highly  into body
manipulation: tattoos,  piercings, and  (scary) branding.  He's really
political and he talks about  queer-this and queer-that and the  whole
thing reminds me of our office's recent fling with Marxism, and I  try
and pretend it's fascinating, but  my mind does wander off.  Like when
someone starts describing their stereo.

I couldn't help thinking, though, that  it was a good thing Bug  moved
to San Francisco - being gay is such a nonissue here. You could be  an
ultrapolitical gay activist or a gay Republican; there's no overriding
clique dominating. And fortunately for Bug, there seems to be a bigger
dating pool to draw from than in Coeur d'Alene or Seattle.

Anyway, Bug,  Jeremy, Karla,  and I  stopped by  Body Manipulations on
Fillmore Street. The guy in front of us was waiting to get a "Gigue" 
a pierce inserted onto the strip  of skin between the scrotum and  the
anus.

"But  your  body is  your  hard drive!"  said  Karla, to  embarrassing
withering stares of everybody in the store.

Karla, Bug, and I blanched and  Bug asked Jeremy if his earring  could
wait. Jeremy was furious and  stormed out. So the piercing's  on hold,
at least  temporarily, and  Bug is  in the  doghouse with  Jeremy. Bug
said, "I  think there's  a lot  about this  new culture  I don't quite
understand yet. I'm coming to it pretty late."

* * *

Whenever Abe e-mails  me, he uses  a fast-food-related tag  line. I've
compiled a list. Herewith:

Ample Parking

Ask Your Manager about Unionizing . . . No, Don't

Batter-fried Batter: Yum

Backlit Plexiglas Signs: Excellent BB Gun Targets

Cat Food: The Next Level

Customers Are Taking too Many Free Napkins

e coli. 157 Bacteria Colonizes Undercooked Patties

Elderly Employees Easier to Bully

Everybody Fears Clowns

Fishwich . . . Real Word . . . Yes or No?

Focus Grouping Deems Lamb-burgers Unpopular

Garish Color Schemes Discourage Loitering

Gift Certificates Make Shitty Presents

Hairnets

Hard to Envision Ronald McDonald Dating

More Orange Drink Machines at Birthday Parties

Muzak Discourages Loitering Teen Thugs

Pictures Instead of Words on Cash Register Buttons

Pseudo-randomly Shaped Beef Patties

Shamrock Burgers Unlikely

Swan Nuggets Tempt Yuppies

28 Dead in Random Sniping Bloodbath

Unhappy Meals - And That's Okay

Uniforms Must Affirm Asexuality

Younger Staff Exhibiting Insolence



FRIDAY


Susan and Emmett have  made up, but Karla  says that it’s going  to be
tempestuous between them. Susan likes bullying, and Emmett likes to be
bullied.  They were  down in  the parking  lot earlier  on filling  up
partially rotted green bell peppers with red marine alkyd enamel paint
which they will  then hurl at  sexually exploitative billboards  later
tonight. Emmett wears the same expression on his face that Misty wears
whenever  Dusty  twirls   her  around  like   a  Maypole.  He's   just
frighteningly in love. I mean, I love Karla, but Emmett seems, what is
the word . . . enslaved.

*UH OH*.

But then, Susan's the obsessive type, too. So they're a pair.

* * *

Mom and I  took Misty for  a morning walk  today and Mom  was chattier
than usual. Her work at the seniors home has her thinking quite a bit,
it seems. Between  the seniors home,  swimming, the library,  and Dad,
she's so busy nowadays.

In order to keep up with "us kids," Mom's been reading (and  clipping)
yet more  articles about  this @$&*%!!  Information Superhighway.  The
enormity  of her  clipping enthusiasm  seems to  have made  the issue
penetrate  her  consciousness.  She was  asking  me  about brains  and
memories.

I wasn't  about to  go into  Karla's theories  of the  body and memory
storage because  discussing my  body with  my mother  is something I'm
simply  unable to  do. But  I did  say, "There's  one thing  computing
teaches  you,  and  that's  that  there's  no  point  to   remembering
everything. Being able to find things is what's important."

"What about if you don't use a memory often enough, then. If a  memory
isn't used enough, does it become irretrievable?"

"Well  -  aside  from   proton  decay  and  cosmic   rays  eliminating
connections, I think memories  are always there. They  just get . .  .
unfindable. Think of memory loss  as a forest fire. It's  natural. You
shouldn't really be afraid. Think  of the flowers that grow  where the
land had just been destroyed."

"Your  grandfather  had  Alzheimer's.  Did  you  know  that?  Maybe  I
shouldn't be telling you this."

"I already knew. Dad told me about it years ago. Was it fast?"

"Worse - slow."

Misty became instant friends with a passing jogger who had been taking
her pulse. Dogs have it so easy.

Mom said, "I've  been wondering if  maybe our time  here on earth  has
been protracted out for too long - by science - and wondering if maybe
it's not a  bad thing to  expire before our  government-waranteed 71.5
years have elapsed."

"Mom, this isn't one of those 'I-have-cancer' talks, is it?"

"God, no.  It's just  that seeing  all those  old people  at work,  so
lonely and forgetful and  all - it makes  me have some dark  thoughts.
That's all. Oh listen to me natter. How selfish."

Mom was always taught that other people's problems were more important
than her own.

"Anything else . . . ?" I asked.

"And now I'm wondering. That's all."

"Wondering what?"

"I seem to  feel myself  losing .  . .  myself. This  sounds so  bored
housewife. But I'm not bored. But  I have problems, too." I asked  her
what they were, but  she said that problems  were best not spoken  of,
and  this  is,  perhaps,  my family's  main  problem.  "I'm  joining a
metaphysical discussion group."

"That's it?"

"You don't think I'm nutty?" (I have never heard anybody use the  word
"nutty"  unironically before,  and there  was a  satellite-link pause
before  I  could  say,  "God no!"  Karla  and  I  have a  metaphysical
discussion group between ourselves almost every night.)

"Of course not."

* * *

Spent  the latter  part of  the day  set on  "WANDER," cruising  this
glorious Bay with Karla. The freeways - they're so gorgeous - the  280
cresting the big hill going north, past all the Pacifica and Daly City
exits; the Highway 92 cloverleaf to Hayward and Half Moon Bay off  the
101. So sensual, so infinite, so full of promise.

Walking through the paddocks - we did the running-across-the-field-in
slow-motion-toward-each-other thing; we toyed with the  bioanimatronic
singing vegetable booth at Molly Stone's on California Street. Then we
looked for an Italian restaurant so we could reenact the classic  Lady
and the Tramp spaghetti noodle/kiss scene.

* * *

During  dinner we  discussed encryption.  I got  to wondering  what a
paragraph with no vowels would look like, remembering that when  Ethan
first  met  Michael,  at  the  Chili's  restaurant,  Michael  was busy
deleting vowels on the menu. So later on I'm going to experiment  with
this.

* * *

Abe:

It stopped  raining today,  so I  wnet out  and bounced  around on the
trampoline.  But  it wansn't  the  same without  Bug  standing on  the
sidelines outlining quadripoligeia in exquisite detail.

I wonder if maybe I don't talk to enough humans in a given day . . . I
have a  few casual  interactions, but  nothing really.  And people I'm
technically close  with, like  my family  . .  . I  don't discuss deep
things with them, either.

Anyways,  it seeems  okay for  us to  talk abuout  things. I've  never
really done this before.  And sometimes I  feel kind of  lost. There 
I've revealed too much. I'm going  to send you this before I  can stop
myself.

* * *

Barbecue dinner tonight chez Mom and Dad.

We  were discussing  the Consumer  Electronics Show  (CES) held  every
January in Las Vegas and every  July in Chicago, and Mom asked  us why
CES is so important, and Ethan, disdaining food, plucking a grapefruit
from a tree beside the wisteria vine, replied pronto. He's so nice  to
my mother. They get  along so well. But  he's not Eddie Haskell  nice.
He's just nice nice. He's also an information leaf blower:

"The CES  began as  an annual  Las Vegas  car speaker  and pornography
trade show. It only incidentally  began showcasing video games in  the
early 1980s. Games  were considered a  sideline novelty and  have only
recently been revealed as the  passageway for the future of  the human
race. Editorials aside, in Las Vegas at CES you have what's called the
'Demo Derby.' Companies  like us have  to have a  working demo of  our
products to show the outlets - Toys-R-Us, Blockbuster, and Target - as
well as business plans and market research. As well you have what  are
called 'product sneaks' - you show  the press your product so you  can
attract potential licensee software developers as well as drum up  new
business. I've been to eighteen CES shows. They make or break you."

After this, Susan said, "You'd think I was at Sea World and had  asked
Ethan about Shamu's feeding habits.  How does he remember this  stuff?
He just reels it off."

* * *

Bug has broken up with Jeremy, who he says is too politicized and  too
extreme. He was fairly open about it with Karla and me.

"Jeremy wanted  me to  be just  like him,  which wouldn't  be so  bad,
except he's just like all of his friends. It's like Coeur d'Alene  all
over again -  except with pasta  and better defined  pectorals. And it
doesn't annoy  me that  Jeremy wants  me to  be just  like him. That's
actually kind  of nice.  But what  bothers me  is that  Jeremy is just
essentially not like me, and we're too disparate to ever be in sync. I
thought, you know, dating would be a bit easier. It's not. And  what's
truly freaky is realizing  I'm vulnerable to identity  changes because
I'm so desperate to find a niche. I feel like Crystal Pepsi."

In the middle of all this,  Dad was putzing around in the  background.
He's building my  space station I'm  designing in real  space and real
time. He asked me where the box with 8-stud beams was. ("Over there by
the bowl of plastic eyeballs." "Oh right - there they are.")

Bug continued, "I know I'm sort of a nerd and I don't dress nicely and
I grouch  out at  times, but  I still  want to  be me.  I want to find
somebody else, sure, but I also don't want to end up harder at the end
of all of this." He went back to work.

Ethan sauntered through. "Milestones?  Are we meeting our  milestones,
oh content delivery system of mine?"

* * *

Susan, Emmett, Dusty, and about  a dozen Chyx organized together  over
the Net,  and  decided  to  picket  Fry's  for  fostering  female  de
intelligence  by  not  selling  tampons.  The  San  Jose  Mercury News
interviewed them, took their picture, and left soon enough. Victory!


[Formatter's note: One full page with nothing but consonants, and  one
full page with nothing but vowels, deleted here]


SATURDAY


Michael and Ethan broke down and  told everyone the news - we  have NO
money. They made sure Dad wasn't around for the news, which was  nice.
We'd more or less suspected this all  along, so in the end it came  as
no surprise.

Suddenly Microsoft  doesn't look  so bad.  How could  we have  been so
stupid to leave? Microsoft is a business first and only - not a social
welfare state for 13,000 people who lucked in at the right moment.

Michael is petrified we might have to sell his Lego. "It's so pretty 
it would be murder . .  . a sin . . .  to take it all apart. And  last
week ID magazine came in to take its picture."

The thing  is, we  agree about  the Lego.  It is  too pretty  to sell.
Somewhere a few  weeks ago, like  a piece of  DNA with just  the right
number of proteins added, it became alive. We can't kill it.

Suddenly it occurred  to me that  Ethan could sell  his Patek Phillipe
watch. That's 35  million yen right  there. I said,  "Ethan, sell your
watch," and he said, "I  can't believe you thought this  was genuine,"
and dropped  it into  the coffee  pot saying,  "Six dollars.  Kowloon.
1991."

We got nothing done in the afternoon. In fact we got drunk. We have no
idea what we're going to do. Work some more, I suppose.

* * *

Abe looks like he's  all set to go  nonlinear. His e-mail is  becoming
telltale to an amazing degree:

At 21, you make this Faustian  pact with yourself - that your  company
is allowed to soak up 7 to 10 years of your life - but then at 30  you
have to abandon the company, or else there's something WRONG with you.

The  tech  system  feeds  on  bright,  asocial  kids  from   diveorced
backgrounds who had pro-education parents.  We ARE in a new  industry;
there aren't really many older poeple in it. We are on the vanguard of
adoldescence protraction.

As  is  common with  Microsoft  people I  worked  like a  mental  case
throughout my 20s, and then hit this wall at thiry and went *SPLAT*.

But  just think  about the  way high  tech cultures  puropose -  fully
protract out the adolescence of  their employees well into their  late
20s , if not their early 30s,.  I mean, all those NERF TOUYS and  FREE
BEVERRGES! And the way tech  firms won't even call work  "The office:,
but instead , "the campus".

It's sick and evil. At least down in California YOU"RE not working  on
a campus.

With you’re 30s begins  "the closing" . .  . you realize that  it' not
going to be forever.  . .the game becomes  a lot more serious.  People
get more involved in their work.

Conundrum: I can't imagine not giving myself fully to a job . . . 100%
of me . . but if I DO, I'd never "have a life" (whatever that  means.)
The problem  is, who'd  WANT to  have a  job that  couldn't absorb you
100%??

SEE?

* * *

Back at the office, drunk, Susan demonstrated for us the Official Chyx
handshake - all Chyx members greet  each other by emulating the  world
famous Farrah Fawcett simultaneous hair-flip-and-aim gesture, touching
fingertips  in  mock  gun-firing  pose at  the  end  of  the gesture's
completion. Dusty, Karla, Michael, and  Susan were in the Lego  garden
practicing, and it was like boot camp:

"Make it  fluid, kids  - remember,  you're sweeping  twelve pounds  of
Texan corn-fed hair out  of your eyes and  readying a loaded Colt  .45
almost simultaneously. There's a slight flip of the neck involved, and
the left gun-holding  hand must reach  horizontal position at  exactly
the same  moment the  hair-flipping finger  has swept  the hair and is
ready to pull  the trigger. Michael  - a bit  more grace. Dusty,  what
would Kelly, Jill,  and Sabrina say  about that jerkiness  between the
hair and the  trigger? Take aim,  Chyx. You are  the world. Free  your
mind. Unplug. Plug in."

* * *

Thought: all  PC-style consumer  electronics are  the same oyster-gray
color of Macintoshes. The guy who  makes the gray pigment must be  one
rich pigment maker.  And all TV-style  things are black.  What will be
the color when TVs and PCs merge?


SUNDAY


Abe has defected! Susan was on CNN! What a day! Exclamation marks!

First of  all, Abe  arrived with  a U-Haul  filled with 10,000 plastic
drinking straws,  Jif, a  bed, and,  hopefully, a  Scrooge McDuck-like
heap  of money.  He entered  our Hamilton  Street office  around noon
wearing his  Starship Enterprise  T-shirt. I  said to  him, "Hi,  Abe,
welcome home," and he said,  "Hello, Daniel. I'm having my  trampoline
shipped down -  even though it  would probably be  cheaper to buy  one
here."

He paused here and looked about the Lego garden. "It would be a  shame
not to bring the trampster with me, you know - such a useful  metaphor
for  labor  in the  1990s."  He scanned  the  room further,  seemingly
unfazed by its colorful shock value, and pulled a plump-looking Costco
bag  out from  underneath his  armpit. "Oh,  hello, Michael  . .  . I
brought you some cheese slices to help us through those  all-nighters.
Now please tell me, just where is my space going to be?"

Abe  had a  brief meeting  with Michael  and Ethan  ran out  shouting,
"We're  liquid!  We're liquid!  We  really are  the  liquid engineers.
Daniel . . . how do you spell relief? Spell it, C-A-P-I-T-A-L."

Indeed, Abe is becoming an equity partner. He's going to help  Michael
out as  a "senior"  engineer and  finish some  core low-level code for
him. Not only that but, in the interim until he finds a place to live,
Abe is  also moving  in with  Ethan up  at the  Dirty Harry house, and
Ethan's overjoyed  at the  prospect of  cash. Ethan  was like that old
cartoon dog  character who,  every time  he received  a bone, his ears
would twirl up like  a helicopter, his body  would rise into the  sky,
and then he would float down to the earth in limp abandon.

Abe said, "People without lives like to hang out with other people who
don't  have lives.  Thus they  form lives."  Even better,  he'll have
company.

* * *

CNN: We bootlegged a coaxial cable  line in from the next office  over
and had it blasting on the monitor all day, watching "our Susan" every
hour  on the  hour until  around six  o'clock, demonstrating  for 137
countries around  the world  the Official  Chyx handshake,  discussing
gender-blindness in the tech world, and, best of all, sneaking in  her
Net address.

It was very "TV." After 6:00, her segment was replaced by a segment on
toilet training your cat.

Susan never even told us she did a CNN interview. But she came  across
so well. She's a star! And already her Chyx mailbox on our little Oop!
node is  jammed with  responses. Susan,  wearing a  T-shirt portraying
gender intelligence researcher Brenda Laurel that she had  custom-made
at Kinko's, was  radiantly happy -  not just at  seeing her equity  in
Oop! saved at the last minute  by Abe's money bin, but in  seeing Chyx
explode internationally. "Quelle plug  for Chyx," she said,  obviously
thrilled. "And that Chyx handshake looked  so good on TV. Best idea  I
ever had."

* * *

We celebrated all of the day's news with sundown drinks at the  Empire
Tap Room, and people were coming  up to Susan and saying, "You're  the
smart one!" and Susan admitted that she, indeed, identified with  Kate
Jackson on Charlie's Angels.

Michael mixed Robitussin with his Calistoga water. We asked him if the
drink had  a name  and he  said, "I  hereby christen  this drink, 'the
Justine  Bateman'  after  the lovely  and  talented  sister character,
Mallory, of TV's beloved mid-eighties sitcom, Family Ties."

Abe felt left  out and wanted  to invent a  drink, too, so  he put two
Redoxon vitamin tablets into his diet Coke and rum and christened it a
"Tina Yothers,"  "the  smart,  sassy  younger  sister  of  the  above
mentioned TV sitcom."

We then tormented the staff by demanding those European layered drinks
with all  of the  various liqueurs  of varying  specific gravities  in
tall, thin glasses.  Dusty called the  drinks "metaphor for  the class
system," and we were all weirded-out because we remembered she used to
be so political and now she just changes the subject whenever it comes
up.

Then, because so many people in  the Bay Area have tattoos, we  lapsed
into  a  discussion of  the  subject. In  the  end, we  all  basically
decided,  "Yuck,"  all  except  for Bug  who  is  still  considering a
lifetime of body  mutilation with an  earring appointment he  has next
week. Bug was actually being a bit mopey - the breakup, I suppose.

Anyway, we  concluded that  if we  were forced  at gunpoint  to have a
tattoo put onto us, the only acceptable tattoo we could think of was a
bar code symbol.

We then  tried to  decide which  bar codes  would be  coolest, and  we
decided  the  best  ones  would  be  products  with  high   brand-name
recognition: Kraft dinner, Kotex, Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and so forth.

And then we figured that bar  codes will be obsolete soon enough,  and
having one on your shoulder or forehead would be like having a Betamax
tattooed on your shoulder or forehead.

So in the end we couldn't decide on a tattoo.

* * *

There was this weird moment at the end of the night when everybody was
pixelated. Ethan was carrying two flaming Sambucas, and tripped over a
Planet of  the Apes  lunchbox somebody  left on  the floor  next to  a
backpack, and the drinks sloshed all over the back of Susan's T-shirt,
and she was on fire, like the "Flame On!" guy from the Fantastic Four.

Emmett leapt over to her from behind and smothered her flames with his
body  and Susan,  who was  so drunk  she didn't  even know  about the
Sambuca, said, "I forgive you, my love," and Emmett kissed her on  the
neck and then  he whispered to  Karla and me,  "She's on fire  and she
doesn't even know it. Poor baby."

* * *

After the  Tap Room,  we were  all far  too drunk  to drive - even the
intake-conscious pregnant  Dusty -  so we  wobbled back  to the office
(piss tanks, all  of us) and  we turned the  lights down low,  so that
only the dimmer lights were glowing  on our Lego garden, as though  it
were sunset.  We were  all just  lolling about  on the  floor, feeling
childish because we  weren't coding for  another few hours.  Dusty and
Karla were making  hair accessories out  of Lego bricks  ("Ooh, it's a
Topsy Tail!")  and  Ethan, Emmett,  and  Michael were  having  a half
hearted (make that quarter-hearted) game of Nerf Wars across the  Lego
garden. Todd was lying on  his stomach staring at Dusty's  stomach (no
visible baby  yet) and  Bug was  taking apart  and rebuilding  a small
house my father had built, and seemed lost in some other world.

Susan was building  a striped, Dr.  Seuss-like radio tower,  and asked
Bug what was on his mind, and Bug said, "1978."

Susan said, "Not the best year for music."

Bug said, "That was the year I  fell in love. The year I got  my heart
broken."

Drunk or not, all ears, visibly or surreptitiously, turned to Bug.

"I wasn't supposed to fall in love. I didn't even know it was love.  I
didn't even know  that love was  some sort of  option. All I  knew was
that I couldn't take  my eyes off him.  I wasn't even looking  around,
but  somehow  this  guy  drew my  attention  magnetically,  and  I was
bewitched."

Unsolicited confession: woah!

"This guy . . . he worked  at the SeaFirst on Sherman Avenue in  Coeur
d'Alene. I'm not saying  his name - as  if it matters now.  No. I will
say his name. His  name was Allan. So  I've said his name.  I've never
done that before." A pause. "Allan."

Bug removed the roof completely from the house and plucked out,  brick
by brick, the interior.

"I came in one day around lunch hour - just before lunch hour - and  I
asked if he was into  a quick bite nearby. He  said yes. We went to  a
Sizzler, and it was such a loser lunch. Anonymous food, but it  didn't
matter. Allan  was acknowledging  the fact  I existed,  and I was half
crazy for him. Hell, I was totally crazy for him."

Bug asked Susan if  she had some extra  six-stud white beams, and  she
gave him some.

"I asked Allan what he did on  Friday nights. He said he went to  this
one bar. I  don't even think  it had a  name. A dive.  Truck stop with
grease burgers and piss  beer. I went there  three weekends in a  row,
and on the third weekend, he showed  up, and I tried to be so  casual.
And we talked, and we got really deep really quickly - that scary kind
of deep you experience when someone has you entranced.

"And he asked me to go for a drive with him. And so ask me, did I go?"

"Did you go?" asked Michael.

"Oh yeah. We drove around for an hour in his pickup and we talked  and
drank Bud Light,  and I kept  waiting for it  to go somewhere,  but my
problem was I didn't know what it was, or where it was supposed to  go
. . . where there was.

He'd swig and wipe his mouth  and wipe his hand on the  upholstery and
nothing seemed to happen. Finally we returned to the bar. Back  there,
at the bar, he said  he had to go, back  to his . . .  girlfriend. But
before he went he  held my hand and  he stroked it, and  I thought I'd
die of excitement."

Bug sighed.

"What happened next?" asked Susan.

"Me? I  hounded him.  Oh fuck,  what a  loser I  was. I made all these
needless deposits  and withdrawals  at the  bank. $20.  $50. $10.  The
manager finally  came over  and pointedly  showed me  the ATM machine.
Allan always managed to elude me, so I never talked to him again.

"Around the same time, I got a job  offer at Microsoft and I took it  
talk  about escape  hatch! And  so there  was never  any closure  with
Allan. He's probably married now, and has 44 kids. I've been  avoiding
people ever since.

"But there was one final  incident, though. The weekend before  I left
for Microsoft, I went  back to the dive,  and there was Allan.  I felt
something swell in my heart, that maybe I'd have a second chance after
all to  really find  out what  it was  that I  wanted to happen, and I
bought two beers and was carrying them  over when I saw him go out  to
the parking lot with some other  guy, taking some other guy out  for a
drive, and  my heart  fell like  a bowl  of goldfish  smashing onto  a
cathedral floor. I guess it's his gig - little drives that go nowhere,
with lonely boys. Whatta sleazebag."

Total silence  had fallen  over our  office, save  for a  few machines
purring. Bug picked up his Lego house and held it and smelled it.

"Sure,  I  know  I'm  a  geek,  and  I  know  that  predisposes  me to
introversion. And Microsoft did allow me to feed the introversion. But
as you're  all noticing  for yourselves,  you can't  retreat like that
here in the Valley. There's no excuse anymore to introvert. You  can't
use tech  culture as  an excuse  not to  confront personal  issues for
astounding periods of  time. It's like  outer space, where  the vacuum
makes your body explode unless you locate sanctuary."

Ethan said, "You mean to say you haven't . . . done anything since the
mid-1980s?"

Susan said, "What do you mean, done, Ethan?"

"You know - made whoopee, for Christ's sake."

Bug said, "More like ever, Eth . . . I had my hand held once.  Woo-ee!
I'd be a lousy contestant on The Newlywed Game."

Michael had gone to the bathroom when this subject came up.

Susan asked, "Well, Bug, what about now?"

Bug said, "Now? I don't know if it's because I was afraid of being gay
or because I was afraid of being rejected, but all I know is that  now
feels like the first chance at having some sort of go at being in love
with someone  else. I  was so  busy geeking  out that  I never  had to
examine my feelings about anything. I jumped into one of those  little
cartoon holes they use in old Merry Melodies, and I just came out  the
other side, and the other side  is here. Didn't you ever wonder  where
the other side was?"

This was  actually a  pretty good  question, and  I got to remembering
that I did sort of used  to wonder where the cartoon holes  would take
you if you hopped into them.

Bug got quiet  and put his  head on Susan's  legs. "You know,  Sooz, I
would have come here for nothing. I never had to get paid." Bug looked
up. "Oh God, Ethan. you didn't hear that." He relaxed. "Well you  know
what I mean. I  just wanted to leave  the old me behind  and start all
over again. It's not the money.  It's never been the money. It  rarely
ever is. It wasn't with any of us - was it? Ever?"

I don't think  it ever was.  We lay around  and were silent  while Bug
pulled himself together. I put on  an old Bessie Smith CD and  we sat,
alcohol scrambling our codes, our thoughts, our lives, if only for the
remaining darkness, until work made its claim upon us once more.


MONDAY


Today was one of those days where  I was snapped awake by a bad  dream
and a hangover. Beware of those layered Eurodrinks - they're made with
scary, bee-sting-filled liqueurs!

* * *

All of us received an e-mail from Bug:

Hi kids. Me here.

Remember back in high school,  there were always those peple  who were
in  relationhips  starting  in  eighth  grade,  and  they're  still in
relationships today?  They know  all the  logical sequnce  of the  way
things are supposed  to happen. Like  in the third  week, they have  a
spat, and they say, "Oh, well  this is just the Third Week  Spat," and
it passes. Never having had a  relationship, I don't know how all  the
steps in a relationship are suppossed  to go. I have to learn  all the
steps, decades later. But I'll do it.

Sorry I lost it last night. I'm off to a B&B in Napa for a few days to
think things through. Leisure and  all of that. Freaky but  necessary.
Live and love. Bye kids.

* * *

It appears  we might  be getting  a publishing  deal lined  up -  with
Maxis, the  Sim City  people. Apparently  the fish  are biting  at the
bait: Broderbund, Adobe, and Alias have also shown a bit of  interest,
too.  So I  guess we're  doing something  worthwhile, or  more to  the
point, possibly profitable. Uh  oh! Am I  losing my integrity,  my One
Point-Oh sensibility?

* * *

I drove with Abe and Ethan to Electronic Arts up the 101 in San Mateo,
on Fashion Island Boulevard - a geek party friend of ours was going to
let us beta-play a new game -  and we got to drive the Highway  92-101
cloverleaf I like so much.

Like most Silicon Valley buildings, EA's headquarters, the Century Two
complex, are sleek and clean,  a Sony-based aesthetic, where a  sleek,
machine-shaped object contains magic components on the inside that  do
cool shit.  Susan says  it's a  "male" aesthetic.  "If men  could have
their way, every building on earth would resemble a Trinitron."

EA's parking lot was so odd  - entirely composed of brand-new cars.  I
felt like I was in the lot  at Alamo. In the fountain out front  there
was a big plaza sculpture plus  a bunch of rubber float toys  in water
crested with Joy dishwashing liquid bubbles.

"I smell nerds," said Abe.

The lobby had  a vitrine containing  a football signed  by John Madden
and a basketball signed by Michael Jordan, game licensees, both.

Played their new game all afternoon. It was almost completely bug-free
and they'll be shipping within weeks.

* * *

Fashion  Island, BTW,  is really  great -  it's all  these huge  dead
department stores that got marooned by new freeway ramp construction.

* * *

After  we  drove  back down  the  101  from San  Mateo,  I  checked my
answering machine at the office. Michael left a message to phone  him,
so I did - even  though he was sitting in  his own office just a  spit
away. No matter.  I got his  machine's message, cobbled  together from
old Learn how to speak Japanese tapes:

[Resonant Berlitzian voice:]

Japanese at a glance

[Befuddled U.S. tourist:]

I can't find my luggage

[Japanese bimbette voice:]

Nimotsu ga mitsukarimasen

[Candice Bergen-type female:]

My luggage is here

[Studly Toho Studios leading male voice:]

Nimotsu wa, koko desu

[Game show host voice:]

Is there a good disco nearby? [Japanese nerdy male voice:]

Chikaku ni, ii disco ga arimasu ka? [Game show host:]

I have cramps

[Candice:]

I have diarrhea

[Studly male:]

There's something wrong with this camera

[Bimbette:]

Cauliflower

[Game show host]

Eggplant

[Candice:]

Prosciutto with melon

[Studly guy:]

Shrimp cocktail



BEEP...

* * *

I told Todd to dial Michael's number  and he did, and we had to  agree
that Michael's messages always indeed rocked the Free World.

Todd, I  should add,  like many  1990s people,  equates his self-worth
with the number of messages on his phone answering machine. If the red
light's not blinking . . .  YOU ARE A LOSER. Todd's almost  cybernetic
relationship with his answering machine (who am I fooling - this  goes
for all of us) seems a precursor of some not-too-distant future  where
human beings are appended by nozzles, diodes, buzzers, thwumpers,  and
dingles that inform  us of the  time and temperature  in the Kerguelen
Archipelago and  whether Fergie  is, or  is not,  sipping tea  at that
exact moment.

Todd says that at least with  e-mail you have a "loser backup  system"
so if you didn't get a phone message, you can at least have text.

Anyway, three minutes later my  phone rang and it was  Michael, asking
if he could take me out for a late afternoon snack, but his voice  was
so hesitant in an un-Michael-ish way. He was stuttering and I began to
freak out, the way you do when  you pass a customs guard at a  border,
even though you're not hiding  anything. I said yes and  braced myself
for what seemed could only be terrible news.

* * *

We drove up the 101 to Burlingame, driving and driving and driving and
driving and  driving and  I realized  that in  the Valley, the formula
really is,  NO CAR  = NO  LIFE. We  arrived at  the SFO  Airport Hyatt
Regency of all places, and I asked him why on earth we were there.

"Daniel, I love  this building.  It resembles  the world's  most piss
elegant nuclear power plant  - look at the  copper-oxide-colored roof,
turret-like  center structures,  and the  delightful Bayside  location
providing cooling waters for all those toasty transuranic fuel  rods."
His expression never changed during this ode.

We talked about the  games at Electronic Arts,  but in the back  of my
mind, I was trying to remember  if I was pulling my weight  with Oop!.
Everybody's been  doing such  amazing work  lately -  the freedom  and
freefloat of intellectual Darwinism is bringing out the best in all of
us  -  and  maybe Michael  doesn't  think  my work  is  as  amazing as
everybody else's. But I think it is. I mean, not only am I doing  some
really hot Object Oriented Programming,  but I think my space  station
is going  to be  truly killer.  The injustice  of it  all - especially
after Abe made us liquid.

Michael  was  trimming  his  finger  nails  and  nudging  the keratoid
crescents into his shirt pocket, and I was getting so PaRAnOId.

We  arrived and  were sitting  in the  Swift Water  Cafe, and  Michael
ordered a decidedly non-two-dimensional piece of apple pie,  flaunting
in my face his betrayal of his Flatlander eating code. He seems to  be
abandoning it  of late.  It's like  an alcoholic  going off the wagon.
He's changing.

And then, from nowhere, he asked me, "Daniel, do I seem alive?" I  was
so taken  aback. I  think this  is the  oddest question anybody's ever
asked me.

I said, "What  a silly question.  I mean -  of course you  do - a  bit
machine-like at times, but. . ."

He said, "I am alive,  you know. I may not  have a life, but at  least
I'm alive."

"You sound like Abe."

"I always  used to  wonder, do  machines ever  feel lonely?  You and I
talked about machines once, and  I never really said everything  I had
to  say. I  remember I  used to  get so  mad when  I read  about car
factories  in Japan  where they  turned out  the lights  to allow  the
robots to work in darkness." He ate his apple pie, asked the  waitress
for a  single-malt scotch,  and said,  "But I  think, yes,  I do  feel
lonely. So alone. Yes. Alone."

I said nothing.

"Or I did."

Did . . . "Did? Until when?" I asked.

"I'm -"

"What."

"I'm in love, Daniel."  Oh man, talk about  a gossip bomb. (And  thank
God I'm not fired.)

"But that's great, Michael. Congratulations. With who?'"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know who."

"Well, I do and I don't. I'm in love with an entity called  'BarCode.'
And I don't know who he-slash-she is, how old or anything. But I'm  in
love with .  . . it.  The BarCode entity  lives in Waterloo,  Ontario,
Canada. I think it's a student. That's all I know."

"So let me  be sure I  understand this. You've  fallen in love  with a
person, but you have no idea who the person is."

"Correct.  Last night  you were  all talking  about getting  bar code
tattoos, and you kept saying the word 'bar code' over and over, and  I
thought I was going to go berserk with love. It was all I could do  to
contain myself. And then Bug was so open and honest I thought I  would
die, and I realized things can't go on as they have been going."

Michael's scotch arrived. He rolled  the ice around and gulped  - he's
shifted from Robitussin into the hard stuff.

"BarCode eats flat food, too. And she-slash-he's written a  Flatlander
Oop!-style  product  with  immense  game  potential.  BarCode  is   my
soulmate. There is only one person for me out there, and I have  found
it. BarCode's my ally in this world and . . . "

He paused and looked across the restaurant.

"Sometimes when  I'm loneliest,  life looks  the most  dreadful and  I
don't want  to be  here. On  earth, I  mean. I  want to  be .  . . out
there." He pointed to the sun coming in a window, a beam coming  down,
and the sky over  the Bay. "The thought  of BarCode is the  only thing
that keeps me tethered to earth."

"So what are you going to do about it, Michael?"

He sighed and looked at the other businessmen in the restaurant.

"But what are you going to do  about it?" I asked again. He looked  up
at me. "Is that why I'm here, Michael? Am I getting involved in this?"

"Can you do me a favor, Daniel?"

I knew it. "What."

"Look at me."

"I'm looking."

"No, look."

Michael put himself under the microscope lens: pudgy; eyeglassed; ill
clad;  short-sleeve  shirt the  color  of yellow  invoice  paper; pale
complexion;  Weedwacker  hairdo  -  the  nerd  stereotype  that almost
doesn't even really exist anymore - a Lockheed junior draftsman  circa
the McCarthy era. But for his almost Cerenkovian glow of intelligence,
he might be mistaken for a halfwit or, as Ethan would say, a fuck-wit.
I said, "Is there something I should be seeing?"

"Look at me, Daniel - how could anyone be in love with me!"

"That's ridiculous, Michael. Love has almost nothing to do with looks.
It's about two people's insides mixing together."

"Nothing to do with looks? That's easy  for all of you to say. I  have
to work  everyday inside  our body-freak  world of  an Aaron  Spelling
production. You think I don't notice?"

"Point being .  . . ?  From what I  can see, if  one person is feeling
something, there's usually a pretty  good chance the other is  feeling
the same thing, too. So looks are moot."

"But then they see me - my body - and it's over."

In a way I was losing my patience,  but then who am I to be an  expert
in love? "I think you're perfectly lovable. Our office is a freak show
and no indication of the world at large."

"You say that like a father whose son just got braces and headgear."

"What do you want me to do, Michael."

He paused and looked  both ways and then  to me: "I want  you to visit
Waterloo for me. Meet BarCode. Offer .  . . it . . . a  job. BarCode's
the smartest programmer I've ever conversed with."

"Why don't you go, Michael?"

He looked down at  himself and clamped his  arms around his chest  and
said. "I can't. I'll be . . . rejected."

Well,  if   there's  one   thing  I   know,  it's   Michael  and   his
unbudgeability. "Michael, if I were to do this, under no circumstances
would I be willing to pretend,  even for one microsecond, that I  were
you."

"No! You wouldn't have  to! Just say that  I couldn't make it  and you
came in my stead."

"What if BarCode turns out to be  a 48-year-old man wearing a diaper  
a diaper with spaghetti straps?"

"Such is love - though I hope that wouldn't be the case."

"How long have you and BarCode been e-mailing each other?"

"Almost a year."

"Does BarCode know who you are? What you are?"

"No. You know the joke: On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog."

"Oh God."

"You'll do it!"

"BarCode could be anybody, Michael."

"I love  their insides  already, Daniel.  We've already  blended. I'll
take what fate throws me."

"But tell me one thing - how can you talk to somebody for over a  year
and not even know their age or sex?"

"Oh, Daniel - that's part of the thrill."

* * *

Back at the office I went on  a walk with Karla and told her  about it
right away  and she  said it  was the  most romantic  thing she's ever
heard of and she smooched me  right there in the middle of  a downtown
street. "Michael is so brave to love so blindly."

When I  told her  that it  was private  and that  Michael would prefer
Dusty and Susan didn't know, her face expressed slight peevedness, but
she understood. They can be merciless.

* * *

Susan showed  me a  dozen boxes  of "Glitter  Hair refill packs" she'd
bought from the  Barbie aisle at  Toys-R-Us. It was  so creepy -  this
dead fake hair inside a pink  box. All Chyx are receiving an  Official
Chyx Wristband  made of  Pentium-grade knotted,  liberated Barbie hair
garnished  with a  small sliver  of silicon  lattice ingot  made by  a
friend of Emmett's  down in Sunnyvale.  "Cool or what?"  Susan already
has over 3,500  Chyx "happening" on-line.  So it looks  as if Chyx  is
real. CNN really changed her world.

* * *

Time warp: it's been months since  I've arrived here. How long have  I
been here? I can't tell. I leave for Waterloo in three days.


TUESDAY


I was with Mom in the car somewhere in Menlo Park and suddenly we were
surrounded by, like,  nine Porsches. It  was just ridiculous.  And Mom
said, "When your father and I first moved here back in ' 86, and I saw
all these cars, I said to  myself, 'My, there's a lot of  drug dealers
here in this area.' "

"Mom, did you buy drugs for Dad's IBM parties?"

It's fun  teasing Mom.  She smiled,  "Oh, you  know .  . . I clip news
clippings."

This quick  chat served  to remind  me that  while car  status here is
different  than  at  Microsoft,   it  is  no  less   hierarchical  and
fetishistic.

* * *

Ethan knows nothing of my matchmaking mission. He thinks I'm going  to
Waterloo to haggle  over purchasing some  subroutines and possibly  to
hire a new recruit. He came over to the house to tell me that he'll be
accompanying  me to  Ontario -  he has  to speak  with the  people at
CorelDraw in Ottawa. They're paying for him to go, so it's a different
gig entirely.

I said that this was a  truly random coincidence, except Ethan said  I
was  not  only being  redundant  ("random coincidence"),  but  that he
didn't believe in randomness, which  is, I imagine, a tacit  admission
of religiousness.

Ethan.

Odd.

He said he'd prove it tonight.

We then got into a discussion of  Nerd Schools and the end of the  era
of "single-dose" education -  and of course this  led to a listing  of
schools that had the best nerd reputations.


	• Cal-Tec (Extreme  nerds; the Jet  Propulsion Lab is  just up
	the hill and around the corner. The big rumor is that they had
	to institute pass-or-fail grading because there were too  many
	GPA-related suicides.)

	• CMU

	• MIT

	• Stanford

	• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (for undergrads)

	• Waterloo

	• UC Berkeley

	• Dartmouth

	• Brown - "Hipster nerd school with a good undergrad  comp-sci
	program."

* * *

We drove up to  Redwood City and played  electronic darts at a  bodega
there . . . Karla, Ethan, and I. Ethan and I grew up in suburbia,  and
we're  both  pretty  good dart  players  (those  nutty rumpus  rooms).
Karla's never played darts before tonight.

Anyway, it was three  darts per person, per  round. Ethan put in  four
quarters and selected  a four-player round.  We asked him  why, and he
said, "You'll see."

Karla went  first, me  second, Ethan  third, and  then for  the fourth
round we had  what Ethan called,  the "Random Round"  where instead of
any of us trying, we'd each huck a dart standing on one foot,  gulping
a beer, throw  it backwards .  . . as  silly as possible.  Ministry of
Silly Walks.

Needless to say, the Random Round won every single game, and always by
a minimum of 100 points. It was scary.

Ethan said randomness is a  useful shorthand for describing a  pattern
that's bigger than anything we can  hold in our minds. "Letting go  of
randomness is one of the hardest decisions a person can make."

Ethan!

* * *

Identity. I go by the Tootsie theory: that if you concoct a convincing
on-line meta-personality on the  Net, then that personality  really IS
you. With so few things around nowadays to loan a person identity, the
palette of identities you create for yourself in the vacuum of the Net
- your menu of alternative "you's" - actually IS you. Or an isotope of
you. Or a photocopy of you.

Kinko's again - photocopy yourself!

Karla noted that  when photocopy machines  first started to  come out,
people photocopied their bums. "Now, with computers, we photocopy  our
very being."


THURSDAY


Ethan was in business class and I was in coach. If it was Oop! paying,
he'd be in the hold with all of the sedated pets.

Ethan  vanished at  the airport  gate, and  once in  flight, the  blue
curtain came down  and Ethan was  gone until we  arrived in Canada.  I
PowerBooked some code on ThinkC and so was able to remain  productive.
Batteries - the weight! They suck up gravity. They fellate the planet.

I  got to  thinking that  nerds really  like anything  that smacks  of
teleportation: freeways; airport first-class lounges; hotel rooms with
voice  mail .  . .  anything that  erases distance  and makes  travel
invisible. Why don't airlines pick up on this?

Upon landing, standing in line at immigration in Toronto, Ethan  asked
me,  "So,  pal, how  was  life in  the  Egg Farm?"  (referring  to the
chokingly full, cramped,  and miserable realm  of coach class;  we can
thank  computers for  perennially cramped  planes). I  said ''Lovely,
thank  you, Ethan.  I took  complimentary salt-and-pepper  packets as
souvenirs. I'll trade them for your Reuben Kincaid sleep goggles."

"Get real, pal."

At immigration,  Ethan pulled  out his  passport and  a whole whack of
Iraqi banknotes tumbled onto the carpet  in a dervish of cash -  Susan
had bought them at a San Francisco stamp store and stashed them in his
passport as a  prank. It was  great; it was  delayed reaction for  the
time two months ago that Ethan left an inflatable hemorrhoid  doughnut
on Susan's  chair while  some Motorola  guy Susan  had a  crush on was
visiting. Ethan looked at the doughnut, then at Mr. Motorola and said,
"Oh - poor Susan. Such pain - you really can't imagine."

Back in Canada,  Ethan was promptly  whisked off to  the cavity search
room as I toddled off to catch my teensy connector flight to Waterloo.
I had to pretend I didn't know him because I didn't want to visit  THE
ROOM either, thank you.

* * *

I was looking at the in-flight magazine, and at the end they had  this
map showing  where the  airline flies  and it  looked like  a science
fiction map of how  a virus transmits from  one place to another.  All
these parabolic  arches from  city to  city to  city to  city. If  the
Marburg virus ever does mutate and go airborne, we're DOOMED!

* * *

Canada: such a  cold, cold country.  In the plane  I saw below  me the
blue  moon's  light  on  white snow;  towers,  poles,  and  lights and
blinkings; a wide land that must be shouted across with electrons. And
I got to thinking, towers are going to be obsolete, soon. All of these
towers, dreaming of their own demise.

* * *

Out  the hotel  window, it  was just  miserable and  there were  these
Zamboni scraping piles of the past winters' snows, all stacked up.  It
reminded me of those Antarctic ice-pack core samples where they  drill
into the  ice and  date the  gases and  pollens trapped  back in time.
Except outside my  window there were  two layers of  soot, one of  dog
poo, another layer of soot, another  layer of dog poo. God, winter  is
gross. I can't believe Eskimos just don't set themselves adrift on ice
floes for the boredom of it all. Or move to Florida.

* * *

Karla sent me a fax saying IF YOU LIVED HERE YOU'D BE HOME RIGHT  NOW.
And I was so homesick.

Watched CNN. Coded Oop!.

* * *

Thought: one day the word "gigabits" is going to seem as small as  the
word "dozen."


SATURDAY


Michael arranged for me to meet BarCode at a student union pub.

BarCode, given the possibility of making a flesh-to-flesh  connection,
admitted on-line that . . . it was, as Michael guessed, a student - so
at least  the 48-year-old-man-in-spaghetti-strap-diapers  scenario was
averted.

"Don't be so sure, Daniel," said Michael on the phone from  California
with not a touch  of worry in his  voice. "Mature students, you  know.
Well - we can only hope not. . ."

Waterloo's student  pub is  better than  others I've  seen. "The  Bomb
Shelter," with an all-black inside, a large bomb painted on the  wall,
big screen TV, video games, pool, and air hockey.

The outdoor temperature was about  minus 272 degrees and the  students
wore thick, gender-disguising outfits to ward off the gales of  liquid
helium sweeping down from Hudson's Bay. I thought of how  in-character
it was  of Michael  to fall  for someone's  insides and  not even know
their outsides. I sat there in a seat next to the wall, drinking a few
beers, wondering if whoever came by could be . . . it.

I was getting all mushy and  lonely and missing Karla when suddenly  a
hand grabbed my throat from behind and yanked me toward the wall, like
an alien from Aliens.  Fuck! Talk about terror.  It was a small  hand,
but God,  it was  like steel,  and a  voice whispered  to me, a girl's
voice: "Talk to me,  baby. I know who  you aren't. So speak  - gimme a
sign, send me a code - let me know that you're you."

Oh man, I was meeting Catwoman . . . with an Official Chyx Wristband!

My head blanked. Only one word came into my head, Michael's code  word
for our meeting: "Cheese slices," I squeaked out from my snared  vocal
cords.

The hand loosened. I saw a bare arm. I saw a bar code tattoo below the
vaccination bump. And then I saw BarCode, revealed at last, as she let
go of  her grip  and climbed  down off  the railing  and into my view:
smaller than  Karla, more  muscular than  Dusty, and  dressed so tough
that Susan  looked like  a southern  belle in  comparison: filthy down
vest on top of an oily halter top; hot pants; gas station  attendant's
boots; haircut with a blunt Swiss Army knife; both eyes dripping  with
smudged mascara and melting snow . . . all underneath an ancient hand
knitted Canadian-type  jacket with  trout knitted  into the  front and
back.  She  was  small  and  tight  and  the  natural  embodiment that
everything Karla,  Dusty, and  Susan self-consciously  were trying  to
turn themselves into. She was the most aggressive female I'd ever seen
and so young - and man, she was so IN CHARGE.

She looked both  ways. She looked  me in the  eyes. She said.  "You're
Kraft  singles's  friend?"  She narrowed  her  gaze.  "You're here  to
interview me? Why didn't Kraft come himself/herself?"

"It's, uh . . . himself.  . . and I'll be  honest with you right now  
I'm here because he didn't think you'd like him if you saw him."

She smashed  a bottle  on the  ground and  scared the  wits out of me.
"Man, what sort of pussy does he think I am? . . . that I give a  shit
whatthefuck he  looks like?"  But then  her demeanor  changed. She got
sweet for a second: "He's a he! He cares what I think about him?"

"  'Kraft singles,'  as you  call him,  is stubborn.  You should  know
that."

She  relaxed  a  bit.  "You're  telling  me.  Kraft  is  one  stubborn
motherfucking entity."

She giggled. "She." Pause. "He . . ."

"You mean," suddenly I was  beginning to understand, "you didn't  know
who he was . . . what he  was? I mean, sorry for being blunt, but  you
didn't know, either!"

"Don't make me  feel like a  wuss." She picked  up an empty  7-Up can,
crushed it flat on her knee and then got sweet again. "Is Kraft,  ummm
. . . like . . . married or anything?"

"No."

I could tell she was relieved and it was beginning to dawn on me  that
Michael wasn't the only one who had fallen for an entity.

"Do you  want to  see a  picture, BarCode  . .  . do  you have another
name?"

"Amy."

"Do you want to see a picture of Michael, Amy?"

Quietly: "You have one?"

"Yeah."

"His name is Michael?"

"Yeah."

"What's your name?"

"Dan."

"Can I see a picture, Dan?"

"Here." She greedily snatched the group picture taken at a barbecue at
Mom and Dad's earlier  on in the year.  Nine of us were  in the photo,
but she spotted Michael right away. I think I had just transacted  the
most bizarre matchmaking transaction in the history of love.

"That's him. . . there."

"Yup."

"Dan, you're gonna think I'm an asshole, but I had a dream, and I knew
that's what he looked like. I put a diskette under my pillow for weeks
waiting for a sign, and it came to me, and here he is. I'm taking  the
photo."

"It's yours."

She looked at Michael's image.  She was tentative and girly.  "How old
is he?" Her voice up-inflected at the end.

I was slightly  drunk, and I  laughed and I  said, "He's in  love with
you, if that's what you want to know."

She got all cocky again.

She grabbed my right hand and shouted, "Arm wrestle!" and after a two
minute tussle (thank  heavens for the  gym), broken up  only because a
group of drunk engineers lollygagged up  to our table and one of  them
barfed one table over, cutting  the moment short, did we  speak again.
"It's a draw," she  told me, "but remember,  I'm younger than you  and
I'm only getting stronger. So tell me about . . . Michael." She paused
to think this over - the name. "Yes. Tell me about Michael."

The waiter brought us both beers.  She clinked mine so hard I  thought
it would shatter and she said, "Tell me again, what does Michael feel?
You know - about. . . me?"

"He's in love."

"Say it again."

"He's in love.  Love. L-O-V-E. Love,  he loves you.  He's going to  go
insane if he doesn't meet you."

She was as  happy as I've  ever seen another  human being. It  made me
feel good to be able to say this with a clear heart.

"Go on," she said.

"He doesn't care who you are. He only knew your insides. He's smart.

He's kind and he's  always been a good  friend to me. There  is nobody
like him on earth,  and he says that  you're the only reason  he stays
tethered here  to the  planet." And  then I  told her  the diaper-and
spaghetti-straps scenario.

She leaped backward into her seat.

"I'm gonna fuckin' explode! Dan! I'm gonna tell you, I'm in love,  and
I'm  in  love  like  an  atomic  bomb  detonating  over industrialized
Ontario, so watch out world!"

I realized that Michael was BarCode's first love, and I realized  that
I was seeing something special here,  as if all of the flowers  in the
world had agreed to bloom just for me, and just for once, and I  said,
"Well, I think it's mutual. Now could you relax just a bit more,  Amy,
because you're frankly  scaring the daylights  out of me,  and I don't
think my right arm can deal with another wrestle."

She gushed  a bit,  flush with  happiness. She  sat and  smiled at the
under-grads who,  it seemed,  regarded her  with a  no small  tinge of
fear. She surely must be some sort of campus legend.

"You're the bearer of hot news, and I'll always remember you for that,
Dan," and she kissed  me on the cheek  and I thought of  Karla, and my
heart felt so happy yet faraway from her.

"Man, I'm so  happy I could  crap," she said,  "Hey - over  there-that
table of engineers - let's go trash 'em!"


SATURDAY

(one week later)


Michael and  BarCode -  excuse me  - Amy  - are  now engaged.  Amy and
Michael have been having a John-and-Yoko lovefest at the Residence Inn
Suites down  in Mountain  View. Karla  and I  went to  visit them, and
their suite was all a-rummage with pizza boxes, diet Coke cans,  dirty
laundry, unread newspapers and  gum wrappers. Michael has  transformed
from a lonely machine into a love machine.

People!

Amy, 20, is going to finish her degree in computer engineering, and is
going to come work for us starting  in May. We're all in love and  awe
and  terror  of  her.  She and  Michael  together  are  like the  next
inevitable progression of humanity. And  the two of them are  so happy
together - seeing them together is like seeing the future.

* * *

Oh - here's something I forgot to write last week. At the bar, I asked
Amy what it was - or rather, how it was that two people could not know
each other and fall in love and all of that. She told me that all  her
life people had only ever treated her like a body or a girl - or both.
And interfacing with Michael over the  Net was the only way she  could
ever really know that he was  talking to her, not with his  concept of
her. "Reveal your gender on the Net, and you're toast." She considered
her situation: "It's an update of  the rich man who poses as  a pauper
and  finds the  princess. But  fuck that  princess shit  - we're  both
kings."

We both got drunker and she said to me, "This is it, Dan. This is  the
way I wanted to always feel. This is it."

"What?"

"Love. Heaven  is being  in love,  and the  love never  stops. And the
feeling  of  intimacy  never  stops.  Heaven  means  feeling  intimate
forever." And I can't really say I disagree.

* * *

Later on tonight, Michael  stomped into the office  in a way he  never
has before, clapped his hands, and shouted, "Troops, let's make  these
machines  do  something they've  never  done before.  Let's  make them
sing."

* * *

Melrose

Voyager

Melrose

Voyager

"Press pound now..."


7

Transhumanity


EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Las Vegas, Nevada

Thursday, January 5,1995


The Alaska Airlines captain said,  "Ladies and gentlemen, the city  of
Las Vegas  is below  us to  your right.  You will  be able  to see the
pyramid of the Luxor Hotel . . . "

The 737 lurched  sideways as its  human cargo chugged  like Muppets to
view a Sim City game  gone horribly wrong: the Luxor  Hotel's obsidian
black glassy pyramid, and beside it, the Excalibur's antiseptic, Lego
pure, obscenely off-scale Arthurian fantasy. Farther up the Strip  was
the  MGM's jade  glass box  with 3,500  slot machines  and 150  gaming
tables representing the largest single concentration of cash points on
earth - "the Detroit of the postindustrial economy," Michael declared.

It was pleasing for me to see so many of the faces of the people in my
life,  lit by  the glow  of the  cabin windows  - Karla,  Dad, Susan,
Emmett, Michael, Amy,  Todd, Abe, Bug,  and Bug's friend,  Sig - their
faces almost fetally blank and  uncomprehending at the newness of  the
world below into which we would shortly dip.

Sig is  an ophthalmologist  from Millbrae  who convinced  Bug that  he
wasn't stereogramatically blind. He's a vast improvement over  Jeremy,
and Bug is suddenly so much more himself, relaxed and joking and  just
. . . glad. Back at SFO Airport Sig and Bug adopted a J. Crew  fashion
thing:  instead  of vogueing,  they  "Crew." When  we  shout the  word
"Crew!" they'd  freeze into  a rehearsed  series of maniacally-smiling
dorky male model poses. It was good for laughs the whole flight  down.
Also, Bug almost  got whiplash from  craning his neck  halfway through
the flight  trying to  catch a  glimpse of  the ultrasecret Groom Lake
military  facility.   He  told   me,  "They   have  UFOs   and  aliens
cryogenically frozen there."

I said, "Right, Bug.  As if Alaska Airlines  is allowed to fly  over a
top secret base," and Bug replied, "Look down there, Dan - that's  the
place where they staged the fake moon landing back in 1969." I looked,
and it did resemble the moon.

So I started to  torment Bug about his  new 3-cylinder Geo Metro,  and
Amy joined in, saying, "God, Bug, you couldn't even kill someone  with
that thing. You could maybe nudge  them to death, or something .  . ."
And then she pretended she was  at her doctor's office and her  doctor
was saying, "Amy, this  rash you've got .  . . have you  had prolonged
exposure to rodents, perhaps,  or small dogs, maybe  3-cylinder cars?"
and Amy says, "Well, yes, actually, I have noticed a Geo following  me
around and nudging me considerably . . . I just assumed it was maybe a
lost student driver  but now that  I think about  it, that's where  my
rash is coming from!"

Susan, Karla, and Amy have really Chyx'd out for the CES - bulletproof
vests over  tiny little  tube tops  (Susan has  declared that it's her
responsibility as a feminist media figure to singlehandedly revive the
tube top),  baggy jeans  worn low  on the  hips, and black sunglasses.
Susan continues to gain celebrity  with Chyx (New York Times  business
section last week).  All three of  them decided to  dress "Tough Love"
because Ethan told  them the fair  is 99 percent  male and they  don't
want to look "like dweeb bait."

I, as ever, am clad in my Riot Nrrrd staple: Dockers and Gap pocket-T.
Dad was in Brooks Brothers, and now that his hair's turned snow  white
over the last year, he makes a singularly trustworthy impression as  a
representative for the company. (And he also finally speaks C++.) Todd
was wearing a trench coat because  he'd read in the Chronicle that  it
was raining in Las Vegas. We told him he looked like Secret  Squirrel,
the  old cartoon  character, and  the coat  soon vanished.  Todd also
unveiled his new "hockey hairdo" on  the flight: short on the top  and
long in the back. I guess  this is because of the hockey  strike. Todd
bought season tickets to see the Sharks.

Also on the plane was a company  called BuildX which is doing an  Oop!
like product, down in Mountain View, and there were eight of them  and
they had matching black sweatshirts  with a futuristic BuildX logo  on
them and they looked  like the Osmonds or  the Solid Gold Dancers.  We
didn't talk to them the whole flight.

* * *

Ethan couldn't come. He's back in Palo Alto, staying with Mom while he
does his chemotherapy, which appears to be going well, even though  it
makes him crabby. He's  starting to lose a  little hair, not too  bad,
and  this  is  a  terrible observation  but  his  dandruff  is finally
clearing.

Dusty is still in disbelief that  her baby wasn't a grapefruit and  is
also at Mom's house for a few days while we're at CES, nursing Lindsay
Ruth and keeping Ethan  company. Mom is giving  her a crash course  in
motherhood,  dragging  out embarrassing  baby  photos of  me  and tiny
little jumpers that I had no  idea she kept. Dusty sits and  stares at
Lindsay for hours on end,  saying to anyone who'll listen,  "Ten toes!
Ten fingers!" Lindsay was delivered on the evening of the final  round
of the Iron Rose IV competition,  and Todd told me on the  flight down
that Lindsay Ruth  was named after  movie-of-the-week star and  Bionic
Woman Lindsay Wagner, as well as for a Bible person. He hasn't  really
talked about the baby yet - I think it's finally sinking in that  he's
a father, now that he's got the physical proof.

* * *

Luggage  lost;  luggage   retrieved;  Vietnam  veteran   taxi  driver;
Gallagher  billboards.  We  checked  into our  hotel  in  a  daze -  a
creakingly old hotel  called the Hacienda.  (Best not discussed.  It's
sole redeeming feature is  its location right next  door to . .  . the
extravagant-beyond-all-belief pyramid of the LUXOR.)

We left the hotel to register at the Convention Center, many  football
fields' worth of sterile white  cubes, which are as attractive  as the
heating  ducts  atop a  medical-dental  center. The  look  on all  the
registrees' faces was great. You could tell that all they could  think
of  was  sex and  blowing  their money  later  that night.  It  was so
transparent. Las Vegas brings out the devil in everyone.

* * *

Las Vegas: it's like the subconsciousness of the culture exploded  and
made municipal. I was so overwhelmed by it that I ended up reviving my
old-style subconscious file from last year. Herewith:

* * *

vasectomy reversal billboard

breakfast

Siegfried & Roy

Compaq

NY Steak & Eggs $2.95

moccasins

Sahara

Nokia

47-Tek

control.

remote.

keno

social interface

cardboard IBM box

is it loud?

tanked girl

reflective surfaces

forgotten cocktails

name tag

cheddar

interactive virgin

Flamingo

dry ice

Moon

American

Floyd

Heywood

cities destroyed

win win win

Nam-1975

monster lab

air lock

Bob

orb

tatami

rings

object popping

lemon

fight

morphin mighty

VFX-1

colonize

thrust

boy game

64 bits

pods

Softimage

anti alias

BAR

trilinear MIPmap interpolation

Ultra 64

gravy

Samsung paper napkin cherry

synthetic

emotional response

Nye County, Nevada

traffic lights

computer personal

Howard Hughes Parkway


Dept. of Energy

White Tigerzoid

floral carpeting

*69

cinderblock walls

First Interstate

implant

strip

Big Endian

escort leaflets

00

beverage

bell

I Endian

* * *

When we returned to the hotel  to change, Karla's and my room  somehow
became the party room.  None of us except  for Anatole, who's here  to
schmooze Compaq, have ever been to Las Vegas before, let alone a  CES.
(Amy called  us "bad  American citizens.")  We were  all giddy  at the
prospect of an evening's unchained fun; sleazy adventure divorced from
consequences.

Anatole and Todd brought up vodka,  mixer, and ice. Our ancient  queen
size bed was as concave as  a satellite dish - the same  mattress must
have been mangling the lumbars  of low-budget gamblers since the  Ford
Administration  - so  we sat  clustered in  its recess  like kangaroo
babies  inside  Mom's  pouch. Chugging  V&Ts,  we  surfed through  the
channels, high on simply being in Las Vegas, even just watching TV  in
a hotel room in Las Vegas.

The TV  began showing  these three-minute  pay-TV movie  clips. ("Hey,
let's watch Curly Sue!") Then one came on touting the AVN Awards,  the
Adult Video News awards. Susan yelled, "The Stiffies!" It's an  actual
Academy  Awards-style show  for porn  people. We  had to  pay. It  was
simply  too juicy  not to.  People were  sashaying up  the aisles  to
collect awards for things like "Best Anal Scene" and they were getting
all  teary   and  emotional   making  acceptance   speeches.  It   was
unbelievable. Awards for, like, "Best Group Scene."

Dad was  fortunately in  his own  room, talking  on the  phone with  a
friend from Hewlett-Packard  he was having  dinner with that  evening.
But really, the whooping we  all made . . .  we were just the sort  of
people you don't want staying in the room next to you.

Anatole said, "Oh  look - that  actress there -  she was in  the booth
across  from my  old company  six years  ago -  and now  she's won  an
award!" Anatole actually seemed quite proud. "In the old days, you had
12 computer game  geeks and 12  porn stars all  crowded into the  most
remote corner of some remote  convention building. We were the  freaks
of the convention. Now we run it. Ha!"

Amy and Michael went into the bathroom and emerged with Kleenex  boxes
on their feet: "We're Howard Hughes!"

* * *

We phoned Mom,  and she said  Ethan was woozy  from today's treatment.
Lindsay  is  pleasingly, Gerberishly  plump,  and former  bodybuilding
enthusiast Dusty is eating my family out of house and home. Misty, who
hasn't shed an  ounce since starting  her diet last  year, follows the
"Madonna and  child" everywhere.  "Dusty's a  sucker for dog-begging,"
says Mom, "and I  keep trying to tell  Dusty not to feed  the dog, but
it's not working." Mom  sounds pissed, but she  has to learn that  her
dog is never going to be slim.  So, all in all, it sounds like  things
are fine there.

Mom asked, half-jokingly,  but also for  real, if Dad  was pulling his
weight as  our company  rep, but  I said  we wouldn't  be able to tell
until tomorrow.

* * *

The  ten  of  us  double-cabbed  (20-minute  cab  wait)  up  the Strip
(clogged) to  a Sony  party Todd  had gotten  us semi-invited  to, and
dropped Dad off at the MGM Grand along the way. All three Chyx in  the
two cars  shouted in  practiced tra-la-la  voices, "Good  night, Blake
Carrington, you hulking piece of  man meat!" Dad's ears turned  bright
red. I think the porno awards were a bad influence on them.

At the Sony party, we all got weirded out because suddenly all of  the
people at the party looked like they were porn stars, even though they
were just real people.  It was only because  all of the Stiffie  Award
winners and their  film clips were  still in our  brains that we  were
perceiving  this. And  then we  realized that  viewed from  a certain
perspective, all people can look like porn stars. So for a few minutes
there, humanity seemed really scary indeed. I wonder how porn people's
mind-body relationships are  - I can't  imagine. Their bodies  must be
like machines to them, or products  to ship, but then they're not  the
only ones  - Olympic  athletes and  geeks and  bodybuilders and people
with eating disorders.

But the Sony party . . . we checked out the live-action footage in the
new Sony games, and  the acting - it  was so cheesy. It  was like porn
acting. This merely reinforced our collective impression that the real
world is a porn movie. Talking to a Sony executive named Lisa, I asked
her how they went about recruiting talent for games, without  actually
saying that their live action sucked. She told me that industry people
aren't realizing yet  just how unbelievably  expensive it is  to shoot
any sort of game with live action. "Just say the words 'live  action,'
and the price goes up a million dollars," she said.

I then wondered out loud  if starring in multimedia products  is going
to be  the modern  equivalent of  appearing on  the Hollywood Squares.
Michael and Amy  lapsed into a  lovebird recital of  questions from an
old  version of  the Hollywood  Squares board  game they  both had  as
children:

"Q: True or false: Frank Sinatra never wears jewelry of any kind."

"A: False."

"Q: True or  false: The average  person can hold  their breath for  45
seconds."

"A: True."

"Q: According to Cats magazine, should you tranquilize your cat before
taking it on an airline flight? " "A: No."

The two of  them irritated all  the Sony people,  because everyone was
trying to be so smooth and Hollywoodish tonight, and not be geeky, and
Michael and Amy  were destroying the  illusion. And then  they started
smooching, and this confused everybody further. Geeks smooching?

* * *

You could tell the  LA people there -  the attitude - they  all looked
like -  minifigs, I  guess. Wait  . .  . am  I being tautological? But
really, Los Angelenos are like a completely different species from Bay
Area  people.  There really  is  this whole  North/South  dichotomy in
California. They truly are two different states.

Michael said, "Los Angelenos  dress like they've been  focus-grouped."
We decided that in  game shows in the  future, contestants will win  a
free   focus-grouping,   where   they  spend   six   hours   with  ten
demographically preselected focus-groupers commenting and  criticizing
all aspects of their  lives. Then, they get  to watch the next  winner
get  ripped apart  behind a  two-way mirror.  Forget year-supplies  of
Rice-A-Roni and bedroom sets.

We were talking with another woman, also named Lisa (which wasn't hard
to remember because every single  woman we met there was  named Lisa).
"Last  year  all  of  the studio  executives  were  bluffing  it about
multimedia," she said, "but this year they're starting to panic - they
don't have a handle on what  they're doing and it's starting to  show,
and mistakes are costing them a pile of money - trying to spooge  Myst
into a  feature-length movie;  trying to  spooge movies  into CD-ROMs.
It's a mess. And New York  still doesn't have a clue. Usually  they're
first, but with multimedia, they're babies and it annoys the hell  out
of them. The people who really do know what's going on are the  people
who aren't posing as visionaries."

I thought about it and she's  right - the geeks aren't flying  down to
LA to take studio executives  out to schmooze dinners at  Spago. Spago
has to come to the geeks. Spago must hate that.

Amy suddenly piped up and said to the Lisa-unit, "Exactly. I'm working
on the Tetris property for Castle  Rock, and I can't believe how  many
bozos are calling  the shots in  a medium they  have no expertise  in!
They're all faking it!"

The Lisa  believed her  - hook,  line, and  sinker! She  obviously had
never even seen Tetris. This was fun.

Amy continued, "In the history of games-into-movies, I think only Tron
has begun to scratch the  surface of what can be  done . . . and  that
came out in '82.  Just because a game  has characters doesn't mean  it
can tell a story . .  . Take Super Mario Brothers. Whoever  okayed the
$45 million budget for that lemon must have had a lot of explaining to
do."

Lisa nodded and asked, "So what's your budget?"

Amy smiled and  said, "The live  action sequences are  really going to
add up - I think we're shooting for around 30 mil."

Lisa, "Do you have a card? Let me give you mine . . ."

Across the room, Anatole was busy chatting up a Lisa-unit, misguidedly
trying to impress her with his "extreme knowledge" of Sony products.

"The good  thing about  Sony products,"  said Anatole,  "is that  they
always say  exactly what  they are  right on  the front  of them.  For
example,  the CFD-758  CD-radio cassette  recorder, or  the TMR-IF310
stereo transmitter, or the 9-band ICF-SW15 FM/MW/SW receiver."

But evidently  his Frainch  accent made  the above  conversation sound
alluring, and he and his Lisa were pair-bonded for the evening.  Karla
said,  "Ever  notice  how  when  Anatole's  around  girls,  his accent
thickens?"

Susan was chatting with a male Lisa-unit solely to torment Emmett, but
he's used to it by now. Susan was a real cachet addition to our party.
She's become such a  cult figure with Chyx.  It was like Jim  Morrison
had entered the room, and she was swamped with admirers.

Then Amy said in a loud and unbelievably embarrassing voice, "What the
fuck is with this place? Every single chick here is named Lisa."

Michael swam in to smooth things over: "She's from Canada."

"Michael, you promised we'd have  martinis and lose a hundred  dollars
at roulette. And the food here stinks and you know it."

"And right you are."

And the two of them vamoosed off to the MGM Grand.

Karla and  I and  a few  Lisas tried  to guess  what the charades hand
signal would be for "interactive multimedia product." A movie is where
you turn a camera reel; a song is where you hold your hands up to your
lips; a book is two palms simulating open flaps. All we could come  up
with for multimedia  was two hands  going fidgety-fidgety in  space. A
definitive interface is certainly needed, if only to make charades  an
easier game to play five years from now.

* * *

After we left the  Sony party, we wandered  around the grounds of  the
yuppie hotel, and I never realized it, but Todd's a mean drunk.  Maybe
his new haircut is bringing  out "The Asshole Within." He  went around
the pathways kicking muffins into  the hot tubs and sticking  pilfered
beta versions of Sony CD ROMs down the hotel's miniature fake  rivers,
and screamed at  all of us,  calling us geeks.  Hellooooo . .  . like,
this is  some big  surprise, or  something? I  suspect that becoming a
father  and  spending  the  last two  months  (as  did  we all,  Dusty
included,  barely  able  to reach  her  keyboard  over her  watermelon
stomach) pulling trip after trip to Kuwait while tweaking code for the
Oop! beta version for Las Vegas - it all got to him and he's releasing
the pressure. We all feel it. Tomorrow and Sunday we find out if  Oop!
(and Interiority Co.) have a strong future.

Todd was  wearing his  Secret Squirrel  trench coat,  but we dared not
mock it. And then  he vanished, probably to  pick a fight at  a sports
bar.

* * *

We checked out the burning lava water show in front of the Mirage  and
the people in the  city began weirding me  out. Las Vegas must  be the
only place  left where  it's politically  correct to  wear a fur coat.
They were just the sorts of  people who would have gone to  Las Vegas,
not Boulder, in The Stand, and here they were.

We were standing next to this huge sculpture of post-human white  lion
tamers Siegfried and Roy not far  from the lava, and then Bug  and Sig
got into this discussion  about how Henry Ford  made Model Ts for  ten
straight  years  without  one  change, and  then  GM  came  along with
something spiffy,  and Henry  laid everybody  off, retooled,  came out
with the Model  A, and then  built that without  a change for  another
five years, and then Plymouth came out with something spiffy and  Ford
finally had to accept the notion of competition and styling.

We tried  to imagine  making a  product without  any changes  for five
years, but we couldn't. Then we noticed that all the cars on the Strip
look the same: Chryslers and Tauruses and Toyotas . . . they all  have
"bubble-butts" that  look like  they came  from the  same mold.  So by
default we're  right back  to Henry  Ford again.  We figured that tail
fins would come  back in, simply  because people are  going to have  a
consumer revolt against how boring and blob-like cars are becoming.

At the mall in Caesar's Palace  we bumped into the BuildX team  at the
Warner Brothers store. We bought  our Marvin the Martian coffee'  mugs
and house slippers, glared at the BuildX team, and left.

I wonder if  Bill ever  runs into  John Sculley  or Steve  Jobs at a 7
Eleven.

* * *

We all wanted to go to the  Luxor and play the games and do  the rides
there, inside the pyramid's interior. Emmett informed us that SEGA has
its only  showcase arcade  there, where  you can  play the  brand-new
almost-beta games.  It's a  brilliant marketing  idea because normally
arcade  games  don't enjoy  the  same kind  of  brand recognition  and
loyalty that home  games do, but  after visiting the  SEGA arcade, the
logo  is burned  into your  brain permanently.  It's like  allowing a
McDonald's orange drink machine at your child's birthday party. Later,
we ran into  Dad and we  were gamed-out, so  we all went  to the Tut's
Hut. We were starved.

The Tut's Hut kitchen  was closed and we  were begging for food  - any
sort of food  - and the  waitress brought over  a plastic cup  full of
garnishes: pineapple wedges, maraschino cherries, and strawberries.  I
made a  joke to  her, that  my Dad  was an  alcoholic barfly, and that
growing up I ate garnishes as meals almost every night - but then  the
waitress got all weird, and  Karla reminded me that people  often move
to Las Vegas to  forget things, and she  stopped coming to our  table,
and Dad, sitting two seats over, was embarrassed because he's not used
to this kind of joke.

* * *

The Luxor has a laser beam of pure white light that shoots up from the
tip of its pyramid and I'd never seen anything so tall, and never knew
this beam of light existed. Pure and clean, and seen from the  ground,
it's so powerful that it really appears to puncture the atmosphere.  I
started rambling  on about  the laser,  but everyone  thought I'd gone
loony and Abe told me to be quiet.

Ethan would have liked the light beam because the whole Luxor  pyramid
thing is sort of like the pyramid on the dollar bill, so I sent him  a
postcard. Instead of  having a faux  Egyptian theme, the  Luxor should
get to the point and have a U.S. Mint theme.

* * *

Todd was in  the lobby of  the Hacienda when  we walked in,  at around
2:30 a.m. He had a plastic  container full of Kennedy dollars and  was
drunk on free drinks, but his meanness was gone. The casino noise  was
horrendous. It  put Palo  Alto's gas-fired  leaf blowers  to shame. As
Karla and I were walking to  the elevator bank, Todd came with  us and
did his  impression  of the  machines:  "Dollar slots  go  koonk-koonk
koonk-koonk-koonk;  quarter  slots  go  kathunka-thunka-thunka-thunka;
dime slots go nink-nink-nink-nink-nink." He did a really good job as a
machine. I think  he bonded with  the slots. We  commended him on  his
performance and sent him wonkily tottering back onto the floor to lose
his remaining coinage. He said, "It's an upperbody night!" and  flexed
his bicep at us.

* * *

Karla fell asleep quickly,  but as ever, sleep  eluded me, and I  went
downstairs to the  casino and half-assedly  played the slots  until my
$20 in quarters was gone.

* * *

Sands

stolen watches

abandoned wedding rings

buried cinderblocks full of $100 bills.

You want to surrender.

Subjected to the random, you acknowledge your inability to  comprehend
logic and linear systems.

royal flush

barbecue sauce

garage door openers

antenna

La Quinta

21

three lemons

plastic bucket

woofer

touch-tone

calling card

We generate stories for you because  you don't save the ones that  are
yours.


FRIDAY


Todd made out last night with  a Lisa-unit from the Sony party,  which
he  returned to  after screaming  at us.  This morning  he burst  into
Karla's and my room and  confessed, teary eyed, and carrying  a basket
of croissants. It  was a bad  start to a  weird day. He  was sick with
remorse.

Anatole was in the bathroom  borrowing Karla's blowdryer, so he  heard
everything through the door. Todd made me, Anatole, and Karla swear on
a stack of Bibles that we  would never say anything to Dusty.  Anatole
launched into one of  his "een my couwntree  . . ." tirades  about how
French men all had mistresses, but he stopped when he saw how sad Todd
looked.

Todd was morose and silent all day. I thought about Dusty and  Lindsay
Ruth at home, and  was glad he felt  miserable, but he'd been  in such
denial over his new family unit that he was bound to explode. At least
he didn't SLEEP with a Lisa.

Also, it was raining outside. Raining.  It was so odd to think  of Las
Vegas having weather, like it  was a real place. But  since everyone's
always indoors in the casinos, I guess it doesn't really matter.

* * *

There was once a Twilight Zone episode where adults were prisoners  of
the whims of a ten-year-old  boy, Anthony, who could change  the world
simply by thinking the change into existence - he could make snow fall
on crops -  he could erase  people - he  forced everybody to  watch TV
that showed nothing but dinosaurs and cartoons. And all anybody  could
say, to prevent themselves  from being erased themselves,  was "That's
good, Anthony, that's good." A focus group of one.

* * *

The CES  is a  trade show  like all  other trade  shows: thousands and
thousands of men,  for the most  part, wearing wool  suits with badges
saying things like:  Doug Duncan, Product  Developer, MATTEL .  . . or
NASA, SIEMENS-NIXDORF, OGILVY & MATHER, and UCLA, and so on.  Everyone
loads up on  free promo merchandise  like software samplers,  buttons,
mugs, pins, and  water bottles as  they dash from  meeting to meeting.
The booths are all staffed by  thousands of those guys in high  school
who were good-looking  but who got  C+'s; they're stereo  salesmen now
and have to suck up to the nerds they tormented in high school.

We  Oop!sters were  in and  out of  meetings all  day, mostly  earnest
affairs held in little rooms above the convention floor. They look the
same  in  every  hotel: chrome  &  glass  rental furniture,  extension
telephones,  and  a water  cooler.  All these  people  meeting inside,
wearing the first  good suit in  their life, turning  old right before
your eyes.

We  were  really  just  there  to  schmooze  and  do  PR,  since   our
distribution's taken care of, and  to approach people to develop  Oop!
starter modules. Standard stuff. We also  did "seed plants" . . .  who
you give your hardware to prerelease is a high status issue.

But I must say, there's  something timeless about the false  sincerity
and synthetic goodwill of meetings, the calculated jocularity and  the
simian  dominant-male/subordinate-male  body  language.  At  least the
presence  of  Karla,  Susan,  and Amy  saved  us  from  the inevitable
stripper  jokes.  Karla  pointed  out  how  in  marketing  meetings at
Microsoft, everybody was trying to  be fake-perky, and trying to  fake
having ideas, while at CES, everybody's trying to be fake-sincere  and
trying to fake not looking desperate.

Also, later, during rare, quiet moments, I'd look through the  windows
at other people's  meetings, and they  looked like Dutch  Master cigar
box people, but modernized. Old, but  new . . . like a  cordless phone
resting beside a bowl of apples.

* * *

We had a  "hunch lunch" in  the hallway outside  the Intel theater  to
compare notes on  how the meetings  were going. The  Convention Center
has the worst  food on  earth, served  in the  most humiliating, chair
free, low-dignity  manner possible.  People looked  like dogs, hobbled
over, eating high-sodium,  by-product enriched, grease-lathered  guck.
Convention Center food  in your stomach  is like having  fifty chest X
rays, it's so  toxic. In fact  for the rest  of the day,  the "chest X
ray" became our official standard of measurement for something that is
probably very bad for you,  which shortens your life, but  which won't
take its toll until much later on. If we met someone really  horrible,
we said  they were  like "ten  chest X  rays," and  we'll probably die
three days earlier than if we had never met that person.

* * *

After lunch, we went to see the Pentium movie at the theater Intel put
up in the main lobby. It was about how interactivity was going to make
your life better in the future, and we couldn't stop giggling  because
of all the Pentium jokes about decimal points being spammed around the
Internet. You  knew that  every single  person watching  the show was,
too.

"0.999999985621,"  I  whispered,  setting  everybody  off  into spasms
again, and finally we had to  leave because we were annoying too  many
people with our giggling.

I guess if you find  jokes about decimal places interesting,  then you
truly are a geek.

* * *

In the afternoon, in between meetings, Susan spent most of her time in
the SEGA-Nintendo building, and reconnoitered with her fellow Chyx  at
the Virgin  Interactive mini-bar.  There was  a rumor  that supermodel
Fabio was signing autographs in  another building, so Susan and  Karla
dashed over  to check  it out.  Sure enough,  His Hairness himself was
signing calendars and paperbacks among the booming car stereos.  Susan
and Karla stood in  line for an hour  and finally they each  got their
"magic moment": a few snatches of intimate conversation, sealed with a
kiss and, more  important, a Polaroid.  Susan's going to  post hers on
the Net. I asked Karla what he said to her and she said, "Stereos  are
my passion . . . but only after you." Gag.

Todd got  sullen because  Susan and  Karla kept  on discussing Fabio's
pectoral muscles . . . "They're like beef throw cushions . . . they're
like fifty pound flank-steak  Chiclets . . .  they're like . .  ." and
Todd would say, "Enough already."

* * *

Went to about seventeen  meetings altogether. At  CES, everybody name
drops their hotel all the time. Hotelmanship is a big CES status issue
- people  kept on  asking us  during the  day where  we were  staying.
They'd say, "So, uh" (charged moment) "where are you staying?"

And we would casually reply, "Oh, the Luxor."

Las Vegas hotels are  similar to video games  - games and hotels  both
plunder extinct or mythical cultures in pursuit of a franchisable myth
with graphic potential:  Egypt - Camelot  - the Jolly  Roger. We found
ourselves feeling a  little sorry for  hotels that couldn't  afford to
lavishly re-create mythical archetypes,  or were simply too  stupid to
realize that the lack of  a theme made them indistinguishable.  It was
as if the boring hotels couldn't  figure out what was going on  in the
bigger scheme  of Western  culture. Hotels  in Las  Vegas need special
effects, rides, simulators,  morphings . .  . today's hotel  must have
fantasy systems in place, or it will perish.

* * *

Todd went to see Siegfried and  Roy, and afterward made this big  deal
of showing  Karla and  me his  program when  we were  standing in line
waiting to go on the virtual reality theme ride. We were  underwhelmed
to say the most. Todd was quite impressed, however, with Siegfried and
Roy themselves as proud examples  of science and surgery combining  in
the name  of entertainment  and tanlines.  He seemed  wistful for  his
bodybuilding days of not even a year ago. "Siegfried and Roy are  very
obviously at  the extreme  end of  some exciting  new paradigm for the
human body," said Todd. " 'See Tomorrow's Face, Today.' "

But  then the  big drama  du jour  was when  Todd caught  his parents
gambling . . . right there on  the main floor of the Luxor! They  were
at the quarter-slot video poker  machines, and talk about weird.  They
were  glued  to their  machines,  really scary,  like  those mean  old
pensioners who smoke long brown  cigarettes and scream at you  if they
think you  might be  contaminating their  machine's winnability karma.
Todd ran  up and  "busted" them,  and it  was really embarrassing, but
also too good to miss. I mean, they were all screaming at each  other.
Todd was truly freaked out to see his parents so obviously engaging in
the "secular" world. And wouldn't you just know it, his parents are at
the Hacienda,  too, and  it really  seemed like  one of  those foreign
movies  that  you  rent  and  return  half-wound  because  they're too
contrived to be believed, and  then real-life happens, and you  wonder
if the Europeans understood everything all along.

Todd came to our room and ranted for a while about what hypocrites his
parents were, and it took all  my restraint not to remind him  that he
had "sinned" himself with a Lisa-from-Sony just the previous  evening.
Karla took him out on  the Strip for a walk  and I had some peace  for
the first time all day.

* * *

I called Mom from  the hotel during this  period of peace. I'd  turned
out all of the  lights and closed the  curtains in pursuit of  sensory
deprivation. It was black and sensationless. All there was in the room
was my voice  and Mom's voice  trickling out of  the phone's earpiece,
and this feeling passed through me, this feeling of what a gift it  is
that people are able to speak to each other while they're alive. These
casual conversations, this  familiar voice heard  through a Las  Vegas
hotel room telephone.  It was strange  to realize that,  in one sense,
all we are is our voice.


SATURDAY


BILL was  in town  launching a  new product,  and it  was so  bizarre,
seeing his face and hearing  his voice over the remote  screens inside
the convention floor. It  was like being  teleported back to  eleventh
grade chem class. Like a distant  dream. Like a dream of a  dream. And
people were riveted to his  every gesture. I mean riveted,  looking at
his picture,  trying to  articulate the  charisma, and  it was so odd,
seeing all of these people, looking at Bill's image, not listening  to
what he was saying but instead trying to figure out what was his . . .
secret.

But  his secret  is, I  think, that  he shows  nothing. A  poker face
doesn't mean  showing coolness  like James  Bond. It  means expressing
nothingess. This  is maybe  the core  of the  nerd dream:  the core of
power and money that  lies at the center  of the storm of  technology,
that  doesn't have  to express  emotion or  charisma, because  emotion
can't be converted into lines of code.

Yet.

I kind of lost focus after  a while, and I wandered around  and picked
up a copy of the New York Times lying next to an SGI unit blasting out
a flight simulation. There, on the third page of the business section,
not even the first, was a  story about how Apple shares were  going up
in value as  a result of  rumors of an  impending three-way buyout  by
Panasonic (Holland),  Oracle (USA),  and Matsushita  (Japan). My,  how
things change. That's all  I can think. Apple  used to be the  King of
the Valley, and now they're  getting prospected like a start-up.  Time
frames are  so extreme  in the  tech industry.  Life happens  at fifty
times the normal pace.  I mean, if someone  in Palo Alto says  to you,
"They never called back," what they really mean is, "They never called
back within one week." A week means never in the Silicon Valley.

* * *

Todd was off all  day having ordeals with  his parents, and Bug,  Sig,
Emmett, and Susan walked around hoping they'd "accidentally" bump into
Todd in order to eavesdrop a little, but to no avail.

* * *

MacCarran Airport  is right  next to  downtown Las  Vegas, and a plane
flies over  the city  every eleven  seconds. Karla  and I were walking
between pavilions and we saw Barry Diller in a gray wool suit (and  no
name tag). We sat  down on a riser  near the piled-up plywood  freight
boxes to rest our  feet, and watched the  planes fly by. We  were both
over stimulated.

Karla was fiddling  with the Samsung  shoelace holding her  badge, and
she looked up at a plane in the sky and said, "Dan, what does all this
stuff  tell us  about ourselves  as humans?  What have  we gained  by
externalizing our essence through these consumable electronic units of
luxury, comfort, and freedom?"

It's a good  question, I thought.  I mentioned how  weird it was  that
everybody keeps on asking, "Have you seen anything new? Have you  seen
anything new?" It's like the mantra of the CES.

Karla pointed out that there's really not that many types of things  a
person can have in their house in the end. "You can have a stereo  and
a microwave and a cordless phone . . . and the list goes on a bit from
there . . . but after a  certain point you run out of things  to need.
You can  get more  powerful and  expensive things,  but not really new
things. I guess  the number of  types of things  we build defines  the
limits of ourselves as a species."

Nintendo's Virtual Boy seemed the most advanced thing we'd seen  here.
SEGA won the Noisiest Booth award, and that's saying a lot at CES.

* * *

Bug, Sig, and  Karla were all  a bit annoyed  by how "family-oriented"
the city had become, and we yearned for traces of its proud history of
sleaze and corruption.  I mean, if  you can't get  lost in Las  Vegas,
then what's the point of Las Vegas?

During  a 90-minute  between-meeting lull,  we decided  to go  to the
Sahara to check out the porn  component of the show, a highly  secured
second-floor salon  room chockablock  with the  latest in,  errr . . .
cyber stimulation.

There were no empty  cabs to be found  so we ended up  sharing a stray
Yellow Cab with the worst transvestite on the planet, Darleena:  great
big  hairy  knuckles and  five  o'clock shadow  like  Fred Flintstone.
Darleena kept on talking about the  day last year when she met  Pamela
Anderson of Baywatch  at the Hefner  Playboy mansion. For  half a mile
she discussed breast augmentation with Sig (the doctor).

As a joke I told Darleena that Karla sometimes likes to dress up  like
a small Edwardian boy, and Darleena  got all interested. It was a  fun
ride.

The porn pavilion itself was  creepy. This weird porn energy  and lots
of women  with breasts  like basketballs.  It sounds  so great in that
bachelor  fantasy  way,  but  then you  see  it,  and  you freak  out.
Actually, pornography really just makes sex look unappealing.

After about thirty  minutes we'd reached  our limit, and  were heading
toward the door when  we saw the crowd  surge in the direction  of one
particular booth,  and we  looked, and  there was  John Wayne  Bobbit,
dressed in Tommy  Hilfiger, like a  Microsoft employee, standing  amid
all of these silconized inhabitants of the planet Temptron 5.

Bug said,  "Here it  is, one  day you're  just a  nothing buttwipe who
cheats on his wife living in the middle of nowhere and then, BAM!, two
years later you're wearing  Tommy Hilfiger windbreakers surrounded  by
eleven women with seventy-inch breasts in Las Vegas, Nevada, with  the
whole United States of America wondering if your dick works."

The real world is a porno movie. I'm convinced.

* * *

I got to thinking about sin, or badness, or whatever you want to  call
it, and I realized that just as there are a limited number of consumer
electronics we create as a species, there are also a limited number of
sins we can commit, too. So maybe that's why people are so  interested
in computer "hackers" - because they invented a new sin.

* * *

McDonald's:  "Paying homage  to Ronald,"  said Amy,  pulling into  the
driveway beneath the golden arches.

Everybody tried to remember the last time they ate a real vegetable.

"Pickles or iceberg lettuce don't count."

We were all stumped.

This McDonald's  was offering  a free  16-oz. soft  drink if a student
brings in a  report card with  an A. If  they have two  As, they get a
drink and a small fries - three As, and they toss in a cheeseburger to
boot. Amy said, "Look out, Japan!"  But then she realized, "Las  Vegas
doesn't have schoolchildren, does it?"

* * *

Halfway through the  meal, Michael said,  over his Filet-o-Fish,  "Las
Vegas is perhaps about the constant attempt of humans to  decomplexify
complex systems."

"Huh?"

"Las  Vegas was  once seedy,  but it  has now  evolved into  a Disney
version of  itself -  which is  probably less  fun, but certainly more
lucrative,  and certainly  necessary for  the city  to survive  as an
entity   in  the   1990s.  Disneyland   presupposes  a   universe  of
noncompetitive species - food chains hypersimplified into sterility by
a middle-class fear  of entropy: animals  who will not  eat each other
and who  irrationally enjoy  human company;  plant life  consisting of
lawns sprinkled on the fringes with colorful, sterile flowers."

"Oh."

"Nonetheless, chaos will ultimately prevail,  just as one day, all  of
this will be dust, rubble, and sagebrush once more."

"Oh."

"But you know, the good chaos."

I felt like my IQ had shrunk to one digit.

Amy and Michael began  making out right  there next to  the McDonald's
world play station.

* * *

Oop!, I might add, is going to be a hit. I think this has been lost on
everybody in the Las  Vegan blur, but it  would appear that we're  all
still employed,  and that  our risk  has become  solid equity, but you
know  what? All  I care  about is  that we're  all still  together as
friends, that we're not enemies, and  that we can continue to do  cool
stuff  together. I  thought the  money would  mean something,  but it
doesn't. It's there, but it's not emotional. It's simply there.

* * *

After dark Karla revealed to me  that she, too, was fascinated by  the
laser beam,  so we  told everybody  we were  returning to the Hacienda
next door, and instead drove our rented Altima sedan northeastward  on
Highway 15,  to see  how far  away we  could drive  and still  see the
pyramid's laser beam. I had  heard that air pilots reported  seeing it
from  LAX. I  wondered if  astronauts could  see the  beam from  outer
space.

It was an overcast night. We  drove and drove, and at forty  miles out
we realized that we hadn't  been paying attention, and the  laser beam
was gone. We stopped in at a diner for hamburgers and video poker, and
we won $2.25, so we were "a cheeseburger ahead for the evening."

We then got  back into the  car and drove  back toward Las  Vegas, and
around twenty-six miles outside of Las Vegas we were able to see the

Luxor's beam of light up in the sky again. We pulled the car over onto
the  highway  shoulder  and  gazed at  it.  It  was  awe-inspiring and
romantic.

I felt so close to her.

Later, back at the  hotel, I was PowerBooking  my journal entry and  I
could feel  Karla watching  me, and  I got  a little  self-concious. I
said, "I guess it's sort of futile trying to keep a backup file of  my
personal memories . . ."

She said, "Not at all . . . because we use so many machines, it's  not
surprising we should store memories  there, as well as in  our bodies.
The  one  thing  that  differentiates  human  beings  from  all  other
creatures on Earth is the externalization of subjective memory - first
through notches in  trees, then through  cave paintings, then  through
the written  word and  now, through  databases of  almost otherworldly
storage and retrieval power."

Karla   said  that   as  our   memory  multiplies   itself  seemingly
logarithmically, history's pace feels faster, it is "accelerating"  at
an oddly distorted rate,  and will only continue  to do so faster  and
faster. "Soon enough all human  knowledge will be squished into  small
nubbins  the size  of pencil  erasers that  you can  pea-shoot at  the
stars."

I asked, "And . . . what then - when the entire memory of the  species
is as cheap and easily available as pebbles at the beach?"

She said that this  is not a frightening  question. "It is a  question
full of awe and wonder and respect. And people being people, they will
probably, I imagine, use these new memory pebbles to build new paths."
Like I said . . . it was romantic.


SUNDAY


What happened  was this:  I was  looking out  the window  and Todd was
fighting with his parents out on the Strip, down below the  Hacienda's
sign. How long was this going to  go on? I decided I had to  help Todd
and so I went down to see  if I could '"Stop the Insanity!" Just  as I
joined them,  Karla came  running out.  We all  turned, and  I saw her
coming, and I could tell something was very, very wrong.

She collected her breath and said,  "Dan, I'm really sorry to have  to
tell you this, but there's been an accident."

I said, "An accident?"

She said that she had just spoken with Ethan in Palo Alto. Mom had had
a stroke at her  swim class, that she  was paralyzed, and no  one knew
what would happen next.

Right there and then,  Todd and his parents  fell down on their  knees
and prayed  on the  Strip, and  I wondered  if they  had scraped their
knees in their fall,  and I wondered what  it was to pray,  because it
was  something I  have never  learned to  do, and  all I  remember is
falling, something I have talked about, and something I was now doing.

* * *

plane window

towers

telephone lines

green squares

lights

baggage

The New World dream

The extended arm

The caravan traversing a million miles of prairie

Cross the uncrossable

Make that journey and build the road along the way.

You succeeded at memory-creation beyond all wildest dreams.


Two Weeks Later

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17,1995


Hanshin

Expressway

Stephen Hawking walking through quiet rooms pointing out things you've
never seen before.

Mitsukoshi department store,  Kobe, Japan, at  a 45-degree angle,  its
contents smashed against walls

Western Washington State, minus Seattle's metro region, is assigned  a
new area code, 360, effective January 15, 1995

R U Japanese?

thin blood

Nirvana Unplugged

what I wanted

Nikkei Index

Cerebrovascular event

rear-view mirror

Hawaii

what really happened

Embolus

Possible reversibility

Monsterbreaker

Mothermaker

System-beater

Sharkprincess

Skywalker

Kidnapper

Codebreaker

Keypadburner

clot

Godseeker

Braineater

* * *

This is the day of days, and so the telling begins.

Karla massaged Mom's back in Mom's new room beside the kitchen, a room
that we  filled with  her rocks  and photos  and potpourri  and Misty.
Misty, buffered by dumbness, unaware of the traffic jams in the  blood
flow of  her master's  brain: carbon  freeways of  cracked cement  and
flattened Camrys and  Isuzus and F-lOOs;  neural survivors as  well as
those  neural  victims,  all  as  yet  unretrieved  from  within   the
overpasses of her Self. Mom's brain is crashed and inert, her limbs as
stationary as lemon tree branches on an August afternoon, occasionally
twitching limbs appended by a  wedding ring and a Chyx  wristband from
Amy. Images  of a  crashed Japan  on every  channel, the  newscaster's
voice floating in the background. At least Japan can be rebuilt.

Karla  spent the  morning massaging  the lax  folds of  Mom's skin.  I
wonder, is she there? It is what I . . . we have lived with for weeks,
we who look into Mom's eyes and say, Hello in there, thinking, We  are
here. Where are you, Mom? Where did you go? How did you disappear? How
did the world steal you? How did you vanish?

Actually, Karla was the first to cross the frontier between words  and
skin; speech and flesh.

Karla invaded Mom's  body. Last week  Karla removed her  Nikes, took a
plastic squeeze bottle of mineral  oil from the bathroom, cut  it with
sesame oil, and crawled atop  Mom's prone form on the  foldaway rental
bed. She  told Dad  to watch,  told him  that he  was next, and so Dad
watched.

Karla dug and sculpted into my  mom's body, stretching it as only  she
knows how to do, willing sensation into her flesh, into her rhomboids,
her triceps,  her rotor  cuffs and  spaces where  probing generated no
reaction; Karla, laser-beaming her faith into the body of this woman.

Last week  was the  beginning, the  Confusion, when  everything seemed
lost, the  image of  Mom lying  frozen and  starved of  oxygen in  the
Rinconada swimming pool haunting us. Ethan meeting us at the hospital,
his own skin the color of white fatty bacon embedded with an IV  drip;
Dusty and Lindsay, Dusty sucking in her breath with fear, and  turning
her head from ours, then returning her gaze and offering us Lindsay as
consolation.

* * *

There had  been discussions,  a prognosis,  pamphlets and  counselors,
workshops and experts. Mom's functions may one day be complete and may
be one day partial, but as  of today there's nothing but the  twitches
and the knowledge that fear is locked inside the body. Her eyes can be
opened and  closed, but  not enough  to semaphore  messages. She's all
wired up and  gizmo'ed; her outside  looks like the  inside of a  Bell
switchbox.

What is her side of the story? The password has been deleted.

* * *

Karla would take Dad's hand over the last week and make it touch  Mom,
saying, "She is there and she has never left."

And it  was Karla  who started  us talking  to Mom,  Mom's eyes fishy,
blank, lost and found, requiring  an act of faith to  presuppose vivid
interior dimensions still intact. Karla  who made me stare into  these
faraway eyes and say, Speak to her, Dan: She can hear you and how  can
you not look into these eyes that once loved you when you were a baby,
and not tell her of your day. Talk  to her, Dan: tell her . . .  today
was a  day like  any other  day. We  worked. We  coded. Our product is
doing well, and isn't that just fine?

And so I told Mom these things.

And so every day, I hold the hand that once held me, so long ago.

And  Karla  gently  guided  Dad  up  onto  the  foldaway,  saying, Mr.
Underwood, roll  up your  sleeves. Mr.  Underwood, your  wife is still
here, and she has never needed you more.

* * *

And there's Bug, reading Sunday's color comics to Mom, trying hard  to
make  The  Lockhorns  sound funny,  then  saying  to his  unresponsive
audience, "Oh, Mrs. Underwood, I understand your reaction  completely.
It's like I'm reading 1970s cocktail  napkins out loud to you. I  must
admit, I've never liked this strip," and then discussing the  politics
of syndication, and  which comic strips  he finds unfunny:  The Family
Circus, Peanuts, Ziggy, Garfield, and Sally Forth. He's actually  more
animated than he is in conversations with us.

There is the image of Amy telling rude jokes to Mom and Michael trying
to curb the ribaldry, but being  swept away by the filth, and  Michael
responding with Pentium jokes.

There is  Susan, washing  and cutting  my Mom's  hair, saying, "You'll
look  just like  Mary Tyler  Moore, Mrs.  U. You'll  be a  doll," and
discussing new postings on the Chyx page.

There is Ethan, Ethan on the brink of erasure himself, saying,  "Well,
Mrs. U, who'd have thought that  I'd be the one to monitor  you. Don't
tell me it  isn't funny. Because  it is, and  you know it.  I'd change
your bandages for you, but you  don't have any and that's a  big issue
here."

There  are  Dusty and  Todd,  demonstrating leg-stretching  exercises,
discussing physiotherapy and how to  keep her muscles in tone  for the
day they once again receive their commands.

And there is Abe, who brought in a tub of money, a tub full of  coins,
and said, "Time to sort some change, Mrs. U. Not much fun for you, but
I'll try and  be talkative while  I sort .  . . oh  look . .  . it's a
peso. Woo!"

* * *

Last week  there was  a jolt.  Last week  Karla said,  "You have to go
further, Dan, you have to hold her body."

I looked at  Mom's body -  so long in  not holding -  and I thought of
families who have had to watch  a member die slowly and who  have said
all that can possibly be said to each other - and so all that  remains
is for them to sit and lie there and nitpick over trivialities or talk
about what's on TV - and so I held Mom's body, and told her how my day
had gone. I talked about stoplights on Camino Real, line-ups at Fry's,
rude telephone  operators, traffic  on the  101, the  price of  cheese
singles at Costco.

* * *

This afternoon, this afternoon of the day of days.

I, in this mood where this  earthly kingdom was beautiful in spite  of
life's cruel bite, took the CalTrain and BART over to Oakland just  to
get out of the house, to  thwart cabin fever. Sometimes we all  forget
that the world itself is paradise, and there has been much of late  to
encourage that amnesia.

Along  a roadside  I saw  an unwound  cassette tape,  its brown  lines
shimmying in the sun - sound converted to light. I felt a warm  wind's
gust on the Oakland BART platform. I suddenly wanted to be home, to be
with my family, my friends.

I was met by Michael, who opened the front door of the house. He  told
me about a  story he had  once seen on  the news, a  story about a boy
with cerebral  palsy who  had been  hooked up  to a  computer, and the
first thing he said, when they asked him what he would like to do, was
"to be a pilot."

Michael said to me, "It got me thinking, that maybe your mother  could
be linked into  a computer, too,  and maybe the  touch of her  fingers
could be connected to  a keypad. So then  she could speak to  us." And
then he saw my face and said, "She could speak to you, Dan. I've  been
doing some reading on the subject."

We entered the kitchen, where Bug  and Amy were discussing an idea  of
Bug's, that  "humans  don't  exist  as  actual  individual  'selves'  
rather, there is only the 'probability' of you being you at any  given
moment. While you're alive and healthy, the probability remains pretty
high, but when you're sick or when you're old, the probability of  you
being yourself shrinks. The chance  of your 'being all there'  becomes
less and less. When you die,  the probability of being 'you' drops  to
zero."

Amy saw me and  said, "Close your eyes  right now, this very  instant.
Try to remember the shirt you're wearing."

I tried, and couldn't remember.

She said it would probably take me a lot longer than I'd think.  "It's
a cruel trick of nature that personal memory seems to be the first  to
go.  You'll remember  Alka-Seltzer long  past the  point where  you've
forgotten your children."

She then said to me, "Try  not thinking of peeling an orange.  Try not
imagining the juice running down your fingers, the soft inner part  of
the peel.  The smell.  Try and  you can't.  The brain  doesn't process
negatives."

I walked onto the back  patio, and looked over Silicon  Valley, clear,
but vanishing into a late  afternoon fog, unexpected, fanning in  from
the west. Karla  was wearing a  sweater, and her  breath was like  the
swimming pool's wafting heat, there  in the coolness. I told  her that
it was always in the fall when  the crops were in, that the wars  were
called.

She said to me, "We all fall  down some day. We all fall down.  You've
fallen and we'll all pick each other up."

In the distance I saw the Contra Costa Mountains, and their silhouette
was blurred as I confused the mountains for clouds, and Karla dried my
eyes with fallen leaves  and her sweater's hem.  I told Karla about  a
Lego TV commercial I  saw twenty years ago  . . . a  yellow castle and
the camera  went higher  and higher  and higher  and the  castle never
ended. She said she had seen it, too.

Dad came by with Misty, and we all went for a walk. Down La Cresta  we
went, and Dad had brought  along the electric garage-door opener,  and
we pushed its  red ridged button,  randomly trying to  open strangers'
doors.

* * *

When we returned to the house, my friends were gathered around Mom, in
front of a monitor,  their faces lit sky  blue; they had forgotten  to
turn on the lights  in the kitchen. Mom's  body was upheld by  Bug and
Abe inside  a kitchen  chair, with  Michael clasping  her arms. On the
screen, in  36 point  Helvetica on  the screen  of a  Mac Classic were
written the words:

i am here

Dad caressed  Mom's forehead  and said,  "We're here,  too, honey." He
said, "Michael, can she speak . . ."

Michael put his arms over Mom's arms, his fingers upon her fingers and
assisted her hands above the keyboard. Dad said, "Honey, can you  hear
us?"

yes

He said to her, "Honey, how are you? How do you feel?"

;=)

Michael broke in.  He said, "Mr.  Underwood, ask your  wife a question
that only she and you would know the answer to. Make me sure that this
isn't me doing the talking."

Dad asked,  "Honey, what  was your  name for  me, when  we went on our
honeymoon on Mt. Hood. Can you remember?"

There was a pause and a word emerged:

reindeer

Dad  collapsed and  cried and  fell to  his knees  at Mom's  feet and
Michael said, "Let's push  the caps-lock button. Capitals  make easier
words; consider license  plates. You're a  State of California  vanity
license plate now, Mrs. U."

The caps were locked and the point size lowered. The fingers tapped:

BEEP BEEP

Dad said, "Tell us how you  feel . . . tell us  what we can do . .  ."
The fingers tapped:

I FEEL U

I cut through  the crowd. I  said, "Mom, Mom  . . .  tell me it's you.
Tell me something I never liked in my lunch bag at school . . . "  The
fingers tapped:

PNUT BUTR

Oh, to speak  with the lost!  Karla broke in  and said, "Mrs.  U., our
massage . . . is it okay? Is it helping you?"

The fingers tapped:

GR8 I LK MY BDY

Karla looked at the words and, hesitating a second, declared, "I  like
my body now, too, Mrs. U."

Mom's assisted hands tapped out:

MY DOTTR

Karla lost it and  started to cry, and  then, well, I started  to cry.
And then Dad, and then, well,  everybody, and at the center of  it all
was Mom, part woman/part machine, emanating blue Macintosh light.

* * *

Joy lapsed into silliness lapsed into relief and cocktails.

The kitchen  lights went  on. Amy  said, "This  is so  first-contact!"
Messages lost became messages found:

MIST'Z OVER ETING

DAN CT UR HAIR

GTTNG BETR

LUV U ALL

Here it is: Mom speaking like a license plate . . . like the lyrics to
a Prince song . . . like a page without vowels . . . like  encryption.
All of my messing around with words last year and now, well . . . it's
real life.

* * *

After an hour, the message, GR8LY  TIRED came onto the screen and  Dad
said it was time to wrap it up for now. It was dark, and the fireplace
had been lit by  Todd. Amy came in  with a pile of  old horse blankets
and  flashlights  and  a  set of  pen-size  laser  pointers  from last
Christmas, and said, Michael . . . Dan . . . Susan . . . whoever, help
me move the couch out beside the pool.

She placed these things on the  tired old Broyhill, and we carried  it
out next  to the  blue-green pool,  and the  sky above  the Valley was
filled with a cobalt-gray fog.

Amy turned on one  of the portable lasers  Abe gave us for  Christmas,
the ones we  use to point  at walls during  meetings, and cut  the sky
with a  thin red  beam. Dusty  carried Mom  out and  placed her on the
couch, head skyward, and  Dad lay down beside  her on this couch,  and
wrapped her in blankets.

Amy said, "Mrs.  U., you've probably  always wondered what  kids do on
weekends. Well, the truth of the  matter is, they smoke pot and  go to
Pink Floyd laser shows at the planetarium. Michael: hit the tunes .  .
."

An art rock anthem from another  era filled the air, and we  turned on
all of our lights  and cast them into  the sky, a chaotic  symphony of
lines and color.

The dozen  of us  stood out  there on  the patio,  out in  the January
evening's foggy dark: Michael and Amy, still in their clothes,  diving
in the brilliant  blue pool, rescuing  the R2D2 pool  cleaner from its
endless serflike toil; Dad next to  Mom on her bed, cradling her  head
in his  arms, watching  our lasers,  positioning her  head so that she
could see the beams; Ethan, pale and feisty, testing batteries with  a
small  device,  arguing with  Dusty  over some  small  matter; Lindsay
nearly asleep, lying next to Mom; Abe on his trampoline bouncing  into
the fog  with Susan,  Todd, Emmett,  and poor,  lumbering, overweight,
Misty, their four lasers cutting  the heaven and joining my  laser and
Karla's laser and Dad's and Ethan's and Dusty's.

Karla and I lay down on the cement next to the pool atop a  threadbare
promotional  towel  for  Road  &  Track  magazine,  its  thin   cotton
insulating us from Earth's  current lack of heat.  I told her I  loved
her. Dad heard me say this, and so I guess Mom heard these words, too.

I remembered a friend  of Mom's once told  me that when you  pray, and
you pray  honestly, you  send a  beam of  light out  into the skies as
clear and as powerful as a  sunbeam that breaks through the clouds  at
the end of a  rainy day; like the  lights on the sidewalk  outside the
Academy Awards.

And as Karla and I lay there, the two of us - the all of us - with our
flashlights and lasers, cutting the weather, extending ourselves  into
the  sky,  into the  end  of the  universe  with precision  technology
running so fine, I looked at Karla and said out loud, "You know,  it's
true."

And then, I thought about us . . . these children who fell down life's
cartoon holes  . .  . dreamless  children, alive  but not  living - we
emerged  on  the other  side  of the  cartoon  holes fully  awake  and
discovered we were whole.

I'm worried about Mom . . . and I'm thinking about Jed, and suddenly I
look around at Bug and Susan and Michael and everybody and I  realize,
that what's been missing for so long isn't missing anymore.


                                                            hellojed



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