Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Steampunk? WHAT????


Ever and always behind the curve, I am now in the process of adding steampunk to my vocabulary and making room for it in my mental archive of weird, cool new pop culture stuff. Does anybody else know about this? A strangely mutated love child of Victorian style and sci-fi, with a dash of, well, punk thrown in. Who'd'a thought?

Gotta love the 'puter. Not sure about the keyboard, though. I'll never give up my mahvelous mac keyboard for nuthin'. But the idea of hand crafting gadgets and widgets, not to mention computers, out of brass and real hardware is really neat. This is not a subculture for just any geek -- you have to have actual manual skills to gain cred as a steampunker. Me, I got more than enough on my plate right now, and anyway this kind of workbench DIY doesn't interest me. But it sure looks great. Oh, apparently we should be on the lookout for a resurgence of top hats and other items of Victorian type clothing.

Monday, April 21, 2008

On hiatus for a week or two

...or at least until I can get out from under work overload and collect the bits of my brain that seem to have scattered everywhere but in my head.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Looking mortality in the face...or at least in its general direction

My mom, as they all do eventually, has been getting older and declining in some ways. At first it was slow and gradual but lately it's speeded up. She had a mini-stroke last week and maybe another one this week. She recovered quickly; apparently that's what usually happens. But it's affected her balance, which wasn't great anyway. And she has moments of confusion. She's doing a short stint in rehab but after that she's not going to be able to live alone in her apartment any more. My brother has found a place for her and wonder of wonders, she actually likes it, which is weird because she complains about pretty much everything.

At any rate, I've been thinking a lot about mortality lately. I know, join the club. I'm actually fine with dying -- my dying, anyway. That doesn't scare me at all. It's the falling apart that can precede it. If it were my cat that was declining, I wouldn't have a second thought. I would want to spare it the illness and discomfort. Unfortunately that's not an option when it comes to people. I hope by the time I get to that point, I'll be able to say "okay, I'm done" and someone will put me to sleep.

The other aspect of this situation is that my mother is, well, kind of a moron. My brother says she's always been one. I think that getting older has brought out this quality (or anti-quality) in her. But she's always been very emotionally needy, and never satisfied whatever is done for her. Of course we'll continue to take care of her regardless. But if she had, over the years, managed to build up some reservoir of good will, I'd do it much more willingly. I suppose that if I actually enjoyed spending time with my mother, I'd feel differently, but now it's just a chore.

But back to the whole mortality thing. After I die, what I'd really like is for my ashes to be sent into space and released there. I think it would be only appropriate. Not that I'll know. But I'd like it a lot.