I

I might as well accept that Mondays are when $ÜBERBOSS decides to come to work and I should come in late(r), lest I have no desk at which to work. Today he left shortly after I arrived; the three of us ($ÜBERBOSS, $DEMIURGE, and I) will meet again on Wednesday for lunch and an application demonstration.

In a regard $DEMIURGE reminds me of my undergrad adviser, though this is merely superficial. They share a background at the 'Yard, but that's irrelevant. The fact that comes to mind is that they are generous and insist on treating people. It's through rationalization, and you can't win, though even wanting to win is rationalization on our part. My old adviser took me to lunch one day when I was a sophomore; two undergrads, for whom he was responsible, Sonia and Emily, accompanied; perhaps it's that he and I had a meeting but they had lunch, or he and I had lunch and they a meeting, but in any case the four of us ended up together in town, The Village, at this place far too pricey for the underemployed. The swordfish was great; I've not had it sense. Emily wanted wine, and if everyone just pretends you're twenty-one the waiter believes you and you get to sniff the cork. And when we tried to pay our share there were the rationales, ranging from "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs" (our means were limited) to "I have power, you have none, so I decide." This is just an aside; $ÜBERBOSS makes money, $DEMIURGE and I less, and that's just how it is.

But I hate being treated; I feel as if I'm taking advantage and am not worthy.

Once $ÜBERBOSS left I got my desk, and $DEMIURGE arrived so I could give her a preview of the Django crapplication I'd cobbled together last night after midnight. I felt guilty about the quality, or lack thereof. I'd gotten the model workable (based on memory of a schema I wrote in November) but had to fix a few "I wrote it for the development version but am using the released version" syntax glitches (max_length vs maxlength ... grr) and this morning putzed enough with the admin interface to make it nearly usable as a straight database front-end replacement.

The fact that the admin interface looks a lot like a database front-end convinces $DEMIURGE, I think, that this is nearly there, but I feel like a charlatan, and not just because I haven't written most of the views or done the templates (that last bit will be more or less trivial), but because once again I've presented something that somebody thinks is okay or good and I know is sh*t.

This happens from time to time with my writing (not things I post here, duh), and my adviser nearly had me convinced last summer when we met. I talked for hours, and I left with enthusiasm, and later I realized I was just a good swindler. I don't like the other option, either: people just have really low expectations for me. It's my fault, to an extent, for trying to cultivate somewhat lower expectations and a lower profile, something I was taught to do in elementary school, but let others set their expectations for/of you too low and suddenly any old turd is gold.

The only thing of consequence here is that I know it's sh*t and so can't stay that when for Wednesday, when $ÜBERBOSS gets a peek. I'll devote Tuesday to it; I can't be arsed tonight.

II

I read through the postscript to "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" (pp. 7–21) and almost began "The Lost Mariner" on the bus ride to campus, but instead set the volume aside rather than consume a mere page or two before reaching my destination.

Those purple panties I mentioned a week or so ago? Still there. My estimation of the campus foot-traffic this last week, the fetishes of my fellow pedestrians, or of the campus grounds crew—one or more was clearly too high. Yesterday we got slushy snow; today we had ice. Then the fog rolled in shortly before I left for coffee later in the afternoon than I'd planned. The strolls up and down Bascom Hill are lonely this time of year, though not entirely alone, but fellow travelers are more likely to look away and blame it on the wind and ice and need for care traversing the slick walkways. I feel like counting cracks in the tiles or stones embedded in some slabs. I feel like stopping to ponder and draw the stark, bare trunks and branches that stand isolated along the walk, but there is no privileged vantage. It's a shame that art classes only send students to partake in landscape sketching when the leaves are in evidence.

More Sacks was internalized while I sipped coffee. At the end of the first chapter/text I found an extremely useful—for me—musing on judgment, and then in the second I was smitten by the Humean being turn of phrase. I'm easily amused in that way. An annoying effing bus driver driving the effing number 4 due to arrive circa 6:22 decided he was too effing important to stick to the effing schedule so arrived six effing minutes early.

Fucker.

So I missed my bus, packed up later than expected and after stewing, steaming, st-something-ing, and walked a few blocks to take the 3. It's chilly tonight but hardly cold. A young-ish man, short in that typical way (5'9"-ish?), a cap on his head like a trimmed condom tip, mixed sulking and pacing with bouts of bouncing on his toes as he waited for the bus.

This evening, once again during those commercial breaks between segments of the Terminatrix—which was, in my humble estimation a better written episode than the first—I flipped through the second "issue" of the 2nd LoEG volume and began the third. It's an exercise in style, but a glorious (to use last week's word) one.

III

I'm finally out of both backed beans and chili. The double-whammy, the CrockPot™ batches of each, kept me filled and fed most of this month. We're two weeks into the new year. I've eaten lots of beans and been to the movie theater twice. This is an aberration and as the year progressed I'll regress toward just being mean.

Days Without:

• Alcochol: 14
• Ice Cream: 14
• Finishing a book: 2
• Finishing a comic: 0 [today: Mighty Avengers #7]
• ...?

An old review of He Was a Quiet Man by Stephen Holden (NY Times) was dismissive; the BBC review is bit more optimistic: "Combining the mordant observations of The Office with the twisted romance of Boxing Helena, this macabre farce is an acquired taste. With Sundance fast upon us the A.V. Club considers 10 Sundance sensations that changed filmmaking. There are still a couple on that list that I would like to watch.

Last week I checked out a few DVDs from Four Star but had little time over the weekend to view them; I was too stressed about the Django "work," but I'll get to them eventually. I always say that. One is/was F for Fake, which I'm looking forward to, whereas the others seem like things I picked out mixes of curiosity, availability and a need to have them in my repertoire; they aren't duties, and I will enjoy them, but I have little drive to view them, whereas Welles always just makes me go "... ooh!"

Michael Atkinson covered the DVD release—"All's Well That Ends Welles: Orson's Slippery Sleight of Hand"—in 2005 for the Village Voice. A side-menu ad/link took me to a gallery of Strange Sightings in Second Life (by Bonnie Ruberg). Instead of with that set of images, I instead leave you with some sappy cat blogging at the always entertaining Dr. Zeus's Forensic Files; I believe the Asian Fishing Cat has been seen here before.