Neverending Story

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
Chapter 21

Gemini was cranky. He called for my attention but then couldn't be bothered to look up from his notebook of formulas when I responded. His words were brief. Everybody was glad I was going to a more stable place, but leaving was still awkward. I felt like a dog who, despite a loving family, was being sent to a new home because the new landlord didn't permit pets.

Nearly two months ago I am standing at the entrance to what, in a few moments, will no longer be my apartment. VJ swings one of my suitcases into his trunk and looks up the stairway to see me standing there, staring into the distance.

"Leaving is hard," he says, trying to sympathize.

I look at him a little puzzled. While I will surely never live here again, I will be back in town in about a week.

"It...feels good to be on the road again really."

"Oh?"

Its odd to explain side from one place where I lived for 9 months I haven't lived anywhere consistently for more than six months since I left for college.

We're in the present again now.

"We're going to miss you Pika," he said, giving me a big hug.

"Don't worry," I said, patting him on the back mid-hug, "I'll be back tomorrow for class."

In a sense, this "leaving" seems a bit artificial.

Months ago I tumbled out of a white jeep and turned back to look at Magpie. He's not really one for hugs anyway, although sometimes I wish he was.

"See?" he laughed, trying to make light of the situation, "and this time we didn't even need to call the feds because of bad traffic!"

PJ is probably the greatest oddity in all of this. I don't think I have ever said goodbye to him. The first time we were standing there when I shrugged and laughed about how, even though we had no plans of it, we knew the world was so small that we would run into one another again. Since then I see him about twice a year, just like clockwork. The last few times I don't think I even bothered to say "see you later" when I left.

I'm sitting at lunch in a little Mexican restaurant where my (now former) boss loves to go to to discuss work. It's about a week ago.

"I thought you were kidding when you said you had briefly gone homeless."

I shook my head, taking another bite of my burrito.

"Well I wouldn't have laughed if I had known you were serious."

"Its over now, don't worry."

This weekend we had about the same conversation at a former coworker's housewarming party. It really bothered Crash. His eyes puffed up red and he went into the corner to blow his nose a lot. It wasn't my intention to upset him.

I walked slowly back to the lab on Wednesday, now keyless to collect a last few things. Today Java offered me probably the first compliment I have ever recieved from him.

I watch my coworkers struggle to find a definitive last day to conclude things in the world of a sliding scale relationships. Since I am not moving this time I will remain peripherally involved. If nothing else I will still take classes next door to what use to be my lab. My relationship to this place is changing, but I am not leaving.

The sun is coming up through the front windows of the Torii. I have been here too long. Late nights make the dividing lines between days confusing and arbitrary seeming.

As a matter of fact I have recently begun to struggle with the concepts of the beginnings and endings of anything related to time. The reality is our relationships of all varities do not fit so neatly into the concept of starting and ending on dates unless we choose to abandon them as such.

The human impulse to compartmentalize and consider our lives in discrete chunks is substantial: days, hours, minutes, all these things are artificial constructs we impose on a steady flow of time. The same can be said of phases: high school, college, or a first job. The reality is that this world is built on tiny human connections, and that these connections deteriorate when we stop putting the effort in to mantain them.

"Playlist," I asked, passing him a beer as he sat at the desk in his room, "You're never online."

"Yeah, I hate AIM. You could call."

"What's a good day?"

The idea of these constructs having any meaning at all seems increasingly silly to me as the days pass. After all, will even my life be marked as a little discrete slice? The forces that shaped me, and the impact I leave on the world, faded into existance and will fade out again slowly over a much longer period than my own lifespan. It will not be wrapped up so neatly by the engraving of my tombstone.

I wave goodbye to the Bounty Hunters as they pile into cars to drive breakneck speed to the airport.

"Goodbye!" they call. I hear one voice through an open window, "Hope you get your tranfer to come out with us full time!"

"Don't worry about it," I laugh, "I'll be in touch!"

Bruised

"Pikachu," my boss looks concerned, "did you get in another bar fight?"

"Another? When did I get in a first bar fight?"

Crash brushes past the comment, still pointing to my face, "You have a black eye, and its not the same one you had last week."

***

"Badge?" the guard says, "ID?"

I show him both and he nods, "Have a nice day ma'am."

I lean to one side to put the wallet back in my pants pocket and get some leverage on my bicycle to kick off.

"Uh, ma'am?"

I look back at the guard who seems to be struggling to find a polite way to ask this, "Is your...eye alright?"

"Mosh pit."

***

"Holy shit," Playlist says, "what the hell happened to your arms?"

I look down at my forearms blearily the morning after karate practice. They are black and blue on more than half the surface area.

"Conditioning drills,"

"You look like a battered wife."

Its a standard karate drill. Everybody who I know who has taken any martial art seriously has gone through this drill. Shihan always says that if you do not get bruises from it you were not working hard enough. For at least 500 years this drill has been a part of the training of every practitioner, and yet suddenly now these same marks on my arms are a source of concern.

***

Pacem sits on the couch across from me. The chain on his bike caught and threw him, using the right side of his body as a brake. His ankle is wrapped, as is his wrist on the same side. Just below his knee is a long strip of skin worn red from the friction burn and the asphalt. His toes on the other foot are wrapped from a separate incident. He must have had to explain it six or seven times in about 45 minutes over dinner.

***

When did we, as a society, begin living in an environment where our body's natural healing abilities became sources of distress? A few small scrapes can be considered a natural part of an active life. I might take this to excess, but I'm still somewhat floored at the way some people treat every little scratch like an emergency.

***

"I fell today," the IM flips onto my screen from 3Stack.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the EMS came and everything."

"What?"

"And the firetruck came too."

"The what?"

The injury was a friction burn in gravel, small enough to be covered by a single band-aid within a few days. I had broken two bones and a black eye the same weekend.

***

"She's pissed because you bruised her," he said.

I was baffled, "how did I?"

"You gripped her shoulder too hard for the throw."

"Its judo sparring...don't these things happen?"

My friend sighed, "She found it upsetting, she--"

"Should grow up," I snapped.

"You need to take good care of your sparring partner. Your partner is your best teacher."

***

"Hey Magpie, you scream like a girl!"

There wasn't a response.

"Hey Magpie!" I shouted, getting out of bed to walk to the doorway of my room, "Did you hear me? You sound like the three stooges!"

There's a spot of something red and slick on the floor. More lead me to the kitchen where I find Magpie standing with his head leaned against a cabinet. One finger is held high in the air. with the opposing hand wrapped around it. The blood runs through his fingers and down his forearms.

"I can see the bone," he says.

"Uhh..."

"I want to go to the hospital NOW."

Four hours later Magpie is sitting back in the living room with five fresh stitches.

"Two weeks," he says.

"Until what?"

"Until I take them out."

I'm a little baffled, "Until you have them taken out."

"No, I'm going to do it myself. I would have put them in myself but the cut was at an angle."

"You're...kidding right?"

"No I'm serious... I've done it before."

Trust Magpie to find a cultural shift and run the other way.

***

I'm amazed how protective parents are of their kids now. I remember elbow and knee pads being available for roller-blading but I remember all the kids taking them off as soon as they rounded a corner. Helmets on bikes were a struggle.

I saw a kid today clutching the handlebars of her bicycle, teetering from side to side on her training wheels. Her little pink helmet matched the elbow and knee pads she wore.

"Slow down!" she called to her brother, "I'm scared to go that fast!"

***

My childhood dog sits wagging her tail at the foot of the cherry table. Her ears point up and swivel forward as the stranger talks.

"Yellow lab?" insurance man asks.

"Ah, mostly German Shepard part yellow lab."

"She looks like a yellow lab to me."

The dog's ears swivel again on top of her head. Yellow labs have ears which flop at the sides of their heads. As a matter of fact, aside from her coat, she doesn't look like a lab at all.

"Owning a German Shepard might impact your insurance. Its lucky she's almost entirely a lab."

When did a dog safe enough for police work become a liability?

***

"So you want to learn?"

"Yeah."

He looks at me skeptically, "technically we don't do submission wrestling here if anybody asks. The administration considers it dangerous."

"A 500 year old sport is suddenly too dangerous?"

***

There is a commercial on my television paid for by the county. Its on the dangers of mosquito bites and why wearing bug repellent is important.

Honestly, I do not think there is anybody out there who wants mosquito bites. I'd also be hard pressed to believe that people don't know that bug repellent repels bugs. This commercial, however, pales in comparison to the media hype that turned swine flu, a disease less deadly than the normal flu, into what was suppose to be a worldwide pandemic doomsday scenario. The entire setup reeks of a whole society that is too hyped up over very small physical dangers.

***

My mind snaps back to the corridor. Crash is pointing to my eye still. He's told me stories about bar fights he was in, about being a national champion. I've watched him fight. Why is a little bruise such a big deal?

"What did you do?"

"It was just a mosh pit man..."

Grown Up Grown Ups

Nothing has so thoroughly impressed upon me how severely pathetic humankind is as the experience of working in a cube farm.

I worked in IT. This meant that I was in a unique position. On the one hand I was removed from the food chain of status symbols, and on the other I was frequently the personal bitch of whoever called the help line.

I worked in basically a three cube by four cube space that had become the IT office. This was my first "real" job where I was paid by somebody else, wasn't a camp counselor, and wasn't selling things door to door. Calling me naive was an understatement.

There was a woman who was lurking near my peripheral vision as I worked my first day. After five minutes or so I felt nervous, and after about ten I started thinking I must be doing something wrong.

"Um, can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Rob."

"Well he's not here right now, but I'm the new intern, can I help?"

"Well, I was wondering if you could move me up the list."

"The list?"

"Of who gets a new monitor. I really need one, it would help increase my productivity."

If there even was such a list I was pretty skeptical that begging moved you anywhere you wanted to go on it, but mostly I was skeptical why a woman so invested in her workplace productivity was lurking for prolonged periods outside my office.

As spring break progressed I became increasingly aware of the hierarchy of the approximately 400 person office. The best thing was to have a big office, followed by a small office, followed by a window cube, followed by a large cube, followed by a phone with caller ID, followed by an LCD monitor, followed by a big CRT. There were subrankings of various sizes of monitors. All higher rankings automatically got the stuff the lower rankings had. Accounting seemed to be the people everybody else looked down on to feel better. It was probably the only place I knew where people in 2007 would fight over the size of their CRTs.

***

"So, what can I do?"

"We need to replace some phones." My boss pointed gave me a box of nice new phones with all the gadgets you would never really need to use and a list of persons to deliver them to. All of them were delivered to large offices where important old men sat. Oddly enough these old phones seemed rather nice, and an odd thing to be replacing when I had seen far rattier phones while walking around accounting. It was not long before I had filled the box with the replaced phones, which I brought back to my boss.

"What should I do with these?"

My boss presented me with another list. "Give these people those phones." This list consisted of people in smaller offices with the odd window cube thrown in. Their rejected phones went to the double cubes, which went to the single cubes, all the way down the poor man in accounting who grinned at his new ratty 1980's attrosity like a five year old at christmas.

This was my life: monitors, cube moves, new phones, all had to be brought down the food chain item by item to preserve the hiarchy of power. My primary purpose was to push the little cart around delivering the goodies nobody in their right mind should actually care about from place to place.

***

I dimly remember the pre-hippy days. I remember that my daycare was called "Mother's Day Out," and that I use to beg to spend as much time there as possible. I remember that there was a small slide in the corner, and under the slide was a box-like structure with round holes in each side. This was my fort, and from this place I would sometimes quietly curl up and watch the goings on in the play area with my toy squirrel.

"What are you doing?" some girl called. I remember that she wore a white flowered shirt, and that she was a lot bigger than me.

"This is my space, and I like it."

"Oh yeah?" The girl stomped up the slide adjacent to the box and sat atop my hideaway, swinging her feet across my vision, "Well this is my spot, and its better."

***

"And," the old man asked as I ran cords and adjusted the computer system, "is this a good phone?"

"Same one I have in my office, I think its pretty nice."

"Hrm..."

The man leaned back in his chair, "Well, I suppose IT knows how to get the good things don't they?" I chuckled politely. He watched me for a moment before leaning forward to ask, "Is this better than my old phone?"

I had no idea what the factual answer was but I knew what I was suppose to say, "Oh yes, its one of the nicest phones in the building."

***

"Uggggggggggh," Playlist rolled his eyes.

"What?"

"So my brother bought some new shades using my ebay account. They were Oakley brand, but when we got them we found out they were in fact 'Oakey' brand and he didn't really like them...so he went to resell them. The new buyer also got upset that they're 'Oakey' brand but it turns out they really are Oakleys its just they write the official logo funny..."

***

We're obsessed with stupid status symbols we have invented to make ourselves feel superior to others. I guess I'm not shocked by that, but I am impressed that we don't even know what the symbols are suppose to be anymore.

***

"Shit!"

Michael grins at Mandela and leans over and says the word as loud as he dares, which isn't very loud in fourth grade.

"You can't SAY that."

"Yes I can."

"Teacher's going to hear you!"

"Not unless you rat, are you a rat?"

Mandela crossed her arms and hugged them to herself, "Bet you don't even know what it means!"

Michael scowls at her. Its evident she's right and that he's lost face for it.

***

"Alright so if we leverage rapid prototyping with our available resources for sensor fusion..."

"Which sensors?"

"What?"

"I...can we try that again in plain English? I'm not understanding what you intend to do."

"So...if we..." the voice trails off and I'm faced with an eerily familiar scowl.

***

"Mmmm mmmm," the lady next to me at the lunch table in the cafeteria says, "that woman is a BITCH."

"Oh you can't talk like that," says the other stranger, "Do you know who she is?"

"Girl, I don't CARE who she is, and I don't care who her friends are. I got higher friends than her. I ain't afraid of her."

***

Everybody always seemed big to me, but Laura was big to everybody. She towered over Mime and me. I was too foolish to be afraid of her, but Mime was quite busy with alternately being terrified and adoring this girl.

"She has an older brother," I remember Mime telling me, "He's very old, like 12. He shows her the movie Batman and has lots of teenager friends."

I remember not being adiquately impressed by these attributes in Mime's mind, much to her dismay. "Look, she's the coolest kid, you'd better be nice."

Now the three of us were standing talking, Laura leering over us as usual, "You don't have an older brother," she said to me, "who makes you cool?"

***

I'm texting back and forth with my sister. She just got in another fight with mom.

"Yeah sometimes that happens. Try to stay cool."
"I cant i ask her one thing and then she starts telling me CRAP about wat i said along time ago and it pisses me off :("
"Don't blame you. Still just stay cool or you'll give her some ammo to throw back at you later."
"Ok i will try its just that she talks about herself ALOT."
"Yeah. You will kinda notice very few grown ups ever actually grew up."
"Hahahaha you got that right :)"