January 1998 Archives

12:08 AM, Tuesday morning. You know, I never ate library paste when I was a kid. Did you?

Last night, me, my youngest brother, his girlfriend, and my Mom were talking about games and toys we enjoyed as kids. I was amazed to find myself remembering the exact aroma of the finger-paints I’d played with in kindergarten. I loved finger-painting, though I bet I only did it a few times. Funny how the feel and smell of those slick, gooey paints have stuck with me.

There are a lot of oddly-memorable scents and quite a few bizarre tastes associated with childhood (or maybe I’m just especially loopy)...

I remember, for instance, the way glass marbles taste and sort of wetly click against your teeth when you hold them in your mouth. And I still recall the smell and yeasty taste of Play-Doh -- as well as the way it feels to bite-down on a piece of Silly Putty. The scent of crayons and the way paper tastes when you chew it up for spit-balls are still memorable -- as is the tactile aroma and muddy flavor of clay.

Of course, there are casual exploratory taste-testers on one side and hard-core oral thrill-seekers on the other. I’m pretty sure, for instance, that there was one kid in grade school (I can’t remember if it was a boy or girl) who occasionally ate their own scabs -- an act I found to be impressively horrifying.

For my part, I vividly remember what it is like to chew on a number 2 lead pencil. The way your teeth crunch through that yellow outer layer and into the wood. And how, after you chew the pencil for a while, it gets soggy from your saliva and those little yellow paint flakes start getting in your mouth. If you really chomp the thing (perhaps stressed-out over a math test or something) you might get that scary little dusty gray taste of lead...

As for library paste however, well...I do distinctly remember the scent of it (for what that’s worth). But I never tasted the stuff.

What can I say?

I’m just picky that way.

--- JWR, 1/27/98

4:05 PM, Wednesday afternoon. Well, the aerobic aspect to one of my New Year’s resolutions is going fine. I also started weight training again on Monday -- and I’m a bit sore today. It seems like every year I tell myself that I’m going to get to a level of fitness that I’d really enjoy. This year I’d actually like to achieve my goal.

I’ve never been into team sports that much -- but I do enjoy things like swimming and martial arts. For a long time I was never big on general exercising, either. (I was the skinny, quiet, bookworm type for a good portion of my life and still retain quite a few of those characteristics even now.) In college I did start lifting and such -- and enjoyed the results. I’ve never really carried a lot of muscle, though. (It took me ten weeks of heavy lifting and lots of eating to add on ten pounds a couple of years ago -- the neat thing about that experiment was that I went up to 165 pounds and lost and inch around my waist at the same time. Sort of cool.)

When you think about it, bodybuilding is sort of like slow motion shapeshifting. It’s the "slow" part that tends to test my resolve. Of course, if it happened all at once it would probably be downright shocking -- not up there with the little change-a-roonie in The Howling, but a bit of an eye-opener anyway, if you know what I mean.

I’ve read a lot in the papers recently about cloning, genetic engineering, and such. In general, I think that the fears over Dolly and her barnyard buddies are over-blown. At the same time, I think that the potential for vast change relating to those technologies is, if anything, underestimated.

It’s just a guess, but I don’t see human cloning becoming a common activity at any point in the near future. Cloning of human organs or tissue (perhaps "in situ") is another matter, as is the cloning of other organisms. Those activities will, I believe, become much more widespread.

Even more profound, though, is the probability that science will not only enable humans to reproduce in new ways but also provide means for people to select and alter their own genetic make-up. Things really become interesting when we can (through genetic engineering and other technologies) "customize" ourselves or our children. Transgenic animals and other "designed" lifeforms have already been created.

I wonder what will happen when we really start bodybuilding?

Time for me to do my lifting...

--- JWR, 1/21/98

2:33 PM, Tuesday afternoon. Got up, got out of bed -- dragged a comb across my head... (Actually it was more like: got up, rolled off the futon, washed my face and ate a Pop-Tart and an orange.)

It is bright and crisply-cold here, today. The quality of the sunlight reminds me of Spring -- but a step outside shivers away that idea. I’m listening to a random mixture of Yaz, Pixies, and The Stone Roses on my CD player. It’s sort of an odd combination, I guess -- but I’m feeling pretty odd today, myself. And random too, for that matter. Oooh, "Monkey Gone to Heaven" just came on; that’s one of my favorite Pixies songs. [John grooves for a bit...]

I know for a fact that I don’t write enough. Too often I sit around waiting to be inspired when I should just be grinding out something. Writing is a skill, like carpentry. The more you do it the better you get at it. Inspiration can transform your work, enliven it, or give you a visionary edge -- but so can good hard work.

The Muse can be both fickle and addictive.

Algis Budrys, a writer who’s opinion I respect, once said something to the effect that great stuff has indeed been written by inspired authors -- but it has also been written by authors with head colds forcing themselves to type away because they are worried about paying their light bills. Inspiration is an edge: it’s not the whole ball game.

So, in that spirit, I’m writing this sans inspiration.

I’ve always loved Alison Moyet’s voice (Yaz’s "Bad Connection" is playing in the background now). Her sound is rich and strong. And now "Fool’s Gold" by The Stone Roses has come on. Funky. I think it would be interesting to have a "random play" feature for my mind. Just press that button and all sorts of ideas are mixed and matched in new combinations. Concepts collide, fresh vistas appear.

Inspirations arise.

Of course that could make you lazy. Dependent. Self-referential to an extreme, always re-shuffling the same mental deck of cards. You do have to go out in the world and add to your deck from time-to-time. You do have to think your way through to new ideas.

Sometimes you have to hammer together your inspiration, sand it with annoyance and necessity, varnish it with determination. The good thing is, if you can make your own inspiration it is always available to you. You don’t have to rely on chance. Or random play.

It’s getting dark now, the sky is a deeply luminous cobalt blue. I’m still uninspired (but I wrote this little thing anyway, so there). The CD player is swapping disks. I wonder what will be next?

Ah, it’s Alison again.

--- JWR, 1/13/98