Posts by Berck

Lately it’s started to feel like this site isn’t mine, that its content is somehow dictated by some unseen force of censorship. I found myself looking for a place to direct some typing, and couldn’t come up with an appropriate e-mail address. I used to write Jonah, but that just seems silly now that I can talk to her. I used to be able to type at an empty file with no intended audience, now I need, for some reason, to know that there’s a possibility of being read. In the past, I’ve made some effort to avoid sounding like a moody adolescent with an internet connection, but I’m afraid that’s all gone tonight. Sorry, but it’s a self-professed dumb blog.

I’ve spent this week in a bored, anxious, depressing cycle. I try hard not to toss and turn while waiting for sleep so that I won’t disturb Joanna. Before long, NPR is muttering something incomprehensible as Joanna summons the motivation to shut it up and drive to work. She’s entirely incapable of functioning in the morning, and I’ve found that it’s altogether better if I just stay in bed and out of her way until she leaves. After she leaves, I usually manage to fall asleep for a restless hour or so before giving up and getting out of bed. Lately I dread getting out of bed, not because I’m tired, but because there’s nothing to do. After I get out of bed, I shower and make a great effort not to ponder the likelihood of employment in my near future because I know that path leads to nothing but frustration and fear. I get dressed and anxiously hope that the few bits of email in my inbox are employment related, even though I know they’re not. Then I check my voicemail, just in case. I spend the rest of my day trying not to think about jobs or food and counting down the unknown number of hours until Joanna gets home. I anxiously switch between skimming the surface of the internet in the same old places, never delving too deeply, reading, and looking for new places to send resumes. I anxiously check the time until about noon when there’s a vague possibility of having been visited by the postman. At which point I begin a series of regular journeys to the mailbox, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to deposit the new found contents of the box into the trash can. At some point, after I round the corner, I’ll see the mail truck which means that I can return in half an hour to certain yet unexpected disappointment.

It’s a strange thing, this mailbox disappointment. I find that I’m generally pessimistic about life, except when it comes to the mail. [No moody adolescent blog entry would be complete without a note about music. I just got to the end of +/-, at which point I was planning on embarking upon the well-worn trip through Deathcab for Cutie, but neglected to start it before 10,000 maniacs popped on. I’m reluctant to change it, because there’s something uplifting in the trite over-produced, crappy radio-friendly sounds of 10,000 maniacs. So I wait for the end of “Noah’s Dove” and start “The New Year,” which bothers me lately, because it’s not.] When it comes to the mail, I tend to think that it will provide something exciting. Something good. Something worth being excited about. Or when I’m expecting something in particular, I’m excited before it arrives. Once I open the box and see the anticipated item inside, the excitement is gone. I know what it is, the anticipation is over. There’s the fun of actually opening it left, but it’s not as good. The excitement is the convincing myself there might be something unexpected and wonderful in there, though if you asked me just what would qualify, I’m not sure I could answer.

[This false hopes thing I do with mail is (at least in my mind) related to Kant’s understanding of the importance of the fig leaves and human sexuality in Genesis. “In the case of animals, sexual attraction is merely a matter of transient, mostly periodic, impulse. But man soon discovered that for him this attraction can be prolonged and even increased by means of the imagination–a power which carries on its business, to be sure, the more moderately, but at once also the more constantly and uniformly, the more its object is removed from the senses. By means of the imagination, he discovered, the surfeit was avoided which goes with the satisfaction of mere animal desire. The fig leaf, then, was a far greater manifestation of reason than that shown in the earlier stage of development. For the one [i.e., desiring the forbidden fruit] shows merely a power to choose the extent to which to serve impulse; but the other–rendering an inclination more inward and constant by removing its object from the senses–already reflects consciousness of a certain degree of mastery of reason over impulse. Refusal was the feat which brought about the passage from merely sensual to spiritual attractions, from mere animal desire gradually to love, and along with this from the feeling of the merely agreeable to a taste for beauty, at first only for beauty in man but at length for beauty in nature as well.” From Kant’s “Conjectural Beginning of Human History”. Have I mentioned that I hate Kant?]

In any case, this week I’d been anxiously awaiting a Texas title for the Miata. I’d thought that I would never be able to get the title for the car, but it seems that I could after all, it just required much paper work. The title had been sent to Dad who’d sent it back to me, and I thought it would arrive yesterday, but it did not. I was also awaiting season 3 of Angel, which we’d ordered from Amazon. (This is how we watch TV shows… buy them used on Amazon, then sell them used for what we paid. We may lose a few dollars on shipping and fees, but when you consider what people pay for cable…) Of course both items arrived today at once, so as to spoil any possibility of spreading the excitement across two days.

Part of the excitement about the Miata title was that it would require playing with bureaucracy, which would give me something to do. In fact, today was the first day all week that I didn’t send any resumes. I took the title along with the release of lien form and proof of insurance to the local “Tag Agency”. Oklahoma outsources it’s DMV stuff to local businesses who compete for business. Oklahoma has something like 350 tag agencies. When you consider that it’s hard to believe there are 350 people in Oklahoma, that means you never have to wait for long at one of them. Brilliant really– every state should do it like this. What makes it even better is that the employees are not employed by the state, and are somewhat interested in you as a customer. Because you really could just go down the street to an agency where they’re nice to you.

So I brought them the papers I had so I could ask them what other papers I’d need. I was pretty sure I’d need a bill of sale, and I knew they’d need to inspect the car, and I had neither. But I was sure there’d probably be something else I needed, and I might as well go find out what. I gave the papers to the woman at the front desk. I noticed in amazement that the fat woman in charge, who was usually sitting at her desk ordering the other fat women around was actually helping customers. Furthermore, there was only one other fat woman there to help her. I figured that her normal compliment of fat women were out to lunch, which forced her to do something. The head fat woman was taking a customer’s picture for a driver’s license. The woman helping me examined the papers I’d handed her and started scribbling. She said that I’d need to get the lien signed off on the title. I pointed out that I had a release of lien form, and that should be enough. She asked head-woman who told her that my form was good enough because it was an official state of Texas form, and continued to talk about it in a repetitive and redundant fashion. The woman behind the counter had me sign an application for title and asked how much I paid for the car. “Uhh. One dollar.” I told her, knowing that the amount was used to calculate the Tax I’d pay. “Was it from a family member?” she asked. “Yes,” I told her. “Oh, good, sign this form then,” and handed me a TRANSFER OF TITLE WITHOUT CONSIDERATION BETWEEN FAMILY MEMBERS, which apparently lets me apply for a title without paying tax on the car. Yay. I signed those forms, and asked her if I needed to fill them out all the way. “Oh no, don’t worry about it, I’ll fill them out for you.” (Ever heard THAT from a DMV employee?) I had to pay her $63 (well, actually $64, because I didn’t have a check with me, and they charge $1 to take credit cards) and she handed me an Oklahoma license plate. “Don’t you have to inspect the car? I don’t have it with me…” I asked. “Yes, we can’t issue you a title until we do, but you can bring it by at your convenience. You’ll have to pay us a $4 fee for the VIN inspection.” Which is just funny. I decided that because they were all old fat women, they figured that leaving the office and heading out to the parking lot to look at the VIN on my car was a $4 task.

I drove home with my booty and checked for newly posted flight instructor jobs. Only one, and it required a minimum of 200 hours of instruction given, 2 years experience preferred. (Did you know that booty is a black, as in African American, term? I probably should have, but didn’t. I only realized this after typing ‘booty’ into a google image search, and well… There are no white results. (I have safe search turned off.) I only punched booty into google because I was curious if I was spelling it correctly in the plundering sense. Really.)

I realized that with Oklahoma registered cars I was going to need an Oklahoma Driver’s license. I hoped that Oklahoma wasn’t one of those dreaded states with a point system, and discovered that it is. Nathan tried half-heartedly to start a conversation, so I bemoaned the loss of my bullet-proof Texas license. Oklahoma licenses are mandatorily suspended if you accrue 10 “points” in a 5 year period. Good thing I don’t plan on living here for 5 years.

I read some more, thought about labeling books but didn’t, and the decided that if I was going to go to a driver’s license station before it closed at 4:45, I would need to leave soon. I knew I would need lots of ID, so I grabbed my FAA Airman’s certificate as well as my passport (just in case) and headed to a DMV office. Because you can’t go to a Tag Agency to get a new driver’s license, only a renewal. After I finally got there, and waited in line, and dealt with the bureaucrats who asked, “Is that a REAL pilot’s license?” (No dude, I figured that it would be an easy thing to fake so that I could get an ID to buy booze.) He looked at me with my shaggy hair and beard, and I could tell he just didn’t think I looked like a commercial pilot. I suppose it’s okay, I don’t. I could have given him the passport. But since the pilot’s license won’t get me a job, I figured I could at least use it for some amusement at the DMV. They then took my fingerprints. My fingerprints! I considered raising hell about it, but just couldn’t summon the energy. What’s the point, when the FBI and the TSA already have a copy of my fingerprints filed away? What could it hurt to give them to Oklahoma as well? I should have tried the vision test without my glasses, but didn’t think about it until it was too late. He asked me if I wore glasses. I almost told him they were just for looks, but decided against it. He made me fill out a form, then signed the form, stamped it, stapled my Texas driver’s license to it, and told me to take it to a tag agency to get my license. How’s that for bureaucracy? Since I already have to go to the tag agency tomorrow for a VIN inspection on the Miata, I figure I’ll just do it then.

Shortly after I got back, Joanna rung to tell me she was on her way home. Yay. Then I got engrossed in the intricacies of setting the fetchmail daemon on the server to poll every 90 seconds instead of the default 300 in a debian-friendly way, and then tried to figure out how to make it log somewhere other than syslog.. And then Joanna came home and tossed water on her face THEN tried to kiss me. So she was covered in dirty, muddy, sweaty, drippiness. A new trick, really. She showered, and then, because it’s Pizza night, but we’re lazy, we went to Lowe’s to get a bolt for the Miata license plate. Joanna called Papa John’s from Lowe’s and we picked up a pizza on the way home, after renting The Motorcycle Diaries. Which I’d thought about renting a dozen times before, but figured it would be bad. Joanna talked me into it, and it turns out that was a pretty good movie. My biggest complaint is that it could have been seriously edited for length without losing anything.

I should mention that recently, we watched Kitchen Stories which was also surprisingly good. Charming, amusing, even if somewhat predictable. Before that, I rented Mind the Gap on a title-based whim, and we enjoyed that as well, even though it wasn’t at all British and the now old hate trick of seemingly unrelated yet fantastically related separate characters bit that don’ really come together in the end didn’t ruin it like it might have. And it had Jill Sobule in it, which made Jonah happy. Okay, it made me happy too.

And I said what about Breakfast at Tiffiny’s? She said I think I remember the film and as I recall I think we both kind of liked it, and I said, we’ll that’s one thing we’ve got. You say we’ve got nothing in common, no common ground to start from, and we’re falling apart. You’ll say the world has come between us, our lives have come between us, still I know you don’t care, and I said what about…

I think it’s clearly bedtime because I started trying to figure out what the heck was eating all my computer’s processor time, and it’s the automated nightly backup chores. Which I scheduled for a time during which I was certain I’d be asleep.

We finished the movie at about 9:30pm, and then Joanna went to bed. Which is just way too early for me. So I stayed up, sipping vodka, consuming the internet and listening to music with headphones and tinkering with the links.

I briefly tried to edit this, but the task is too daunting. I apologize for the pathetic verb tense issues, but that comes with the moody adolescent territory, I suppose.