BRIGHTER DAY

0:22

Endless still.:

Periodically, unpredictably, the usual obscuring substrate breaks down, and I see through my own eyes as if they were meant to be seen through. Today I recaptured my concentration in a distilled form I haven't been able to muster since Portland. I walked into work, sat down, put on my headphones and blinded myself to peripherals. I typed non-stop until lunch at 2 pm. I had an efficient meal, and resumed coding (the the tune of "Original") until 6. While testing logging functionality, I noted the timestamp:

NEXIST:Thu Sep 10 14:40:33 1998

Thursday?. The tenth? Three day weekend skewed my week timer, natch. That means I missed Lea's birthday (which is okay, because she ignored mine), the weekend is approaching with dizzying speed, and DSL gets installed tomorrow. (today?)

Most of my day was spent marvelling at how easy it was to completely contain a concept in my head. For the past few months, it was as if I were a tiny bird pecking at a big stone block, trying to carve it into something I had never seen. Overly noodly prose aside, I couldn't create effective processes because I couldn't simultaneously perceive the end result and the detail. Today, though, was something else. Things made sense. Everything I did seemed to WANT to be done that way.

Oddly, the shutting out of distractions could not prevent one particular and unpleasant annoyance: dental pain. On Monday, a toothache of previously unexperienced by Andrew magnitude began, and continues even now. It is so intense that it was giving me a stress headache. The removal of the relationship between action and pain has freed me a few things, however. Eating pointed foods like chips, or hard things like , mmmmm.. rocks has no effect on the level of pain, so I'm eating whatever I want. The comforting thought that the pain would end was followed by the (strangely) even more comforting notion that EVERYTHING would end. Yeah. Everything will end. I don't know why satisfies me so much. I'm in no HURRY for it to end; I'm not gonna go out and mess with schedules.

People are writing to me. I like these people. I miss them.


Is the flash on?