First I have to say why I did that. The truth isn’t pretty.
Mainly it’s because toward the end of it I sounded like a pussy. I use the word cynically. Not only do I have nothing against pussies, of the actual or metaphorical sort, I have a tendency to be awed by them. But I can’t bring myself to play one on TV just yet.
There should probably be a consideration here regarding theatrics and my relationship to the performing arts, but there isn’t, either. Just yet.
It occurred to me that I could give out the password to patrons-only, because anyone who cares enough about me to have donated already (I number you with gratitude on one hand) is not someone I have to worry about entrusting with my inconvenient truths. If you are one of those people and you want the password, just ask and it’s yours.
If you don’t or if you’re not, here’s the official story so far.
Nomine: Alex Vairtere
Age: formerly young
Gender: yeah boi
Race: human mostly
Religion/Politics: the green and the black
Address: Basin and Range; certain plateaux
Pre-Occupation: Belle-lettres. They may try to tell you that this is some subset of literature, perhaps calling it ‘lighter’ with a dismissive wave. They could not be more wrong. Literature is a given pile of words which academics are wont to study. Especially the ever-evolving Canon, but even comic books provided someone offers a class on studying them. So as Hemingway was writing The Old Man and The Sea, it was an act of belletrism. The same book, finished, published, syllabized, assigned, and studied, morphs into literature. Should you have been assigned to read this post, you have my apology. I never meant for things to turn out that way. I hope you can read it without studying it, and still get a decent number of points.
Occupation, aka the hardest part: In Flux. Libraries and the academy have been the basis for ‘decades’. At the outset of this project I am a lecturer in technologies. While my mind is mostly okay with this, except for the pitiful pay, my body hates lecturing passionately and is constantly sending pain to my head, trying to compel it to find something better. Which in turn leads to some alternative preoccupations, including the piling of specific certifications on top of the ponderous degrees.
And speaking of jobs, here is a piece of the protected post that is rated E as suitable for everyone, even enemies.
***
With yet another dream in my mind. What I knew was I’d gotten a new job; a library job like in the years straddling the millenium–my subconscious definitely thinks that the old solutions are the best solutions.
I walked in and there were no patrons. Maybe it was spring break. Instead, everyone who worked there, every one of my colleagues-to-be, were sitting calmly together around the huge spread of reference desks in the front. The lights were low, and they appeared to be meditating. There were a few welcoming smiles and a few meaningless words that made it apparent that they all knew I was the recent hire, but this was conveyed in a limited general murmur.
Standing there, I gathered my legs up under me into the lotus position and floated there before them, happy.
So this dream was a first cousin to a flying dream.
Were this to happen in the so-called real life, it would have been a brainfucking miracle performed before their eyes. Even I, let’s face it, would be challenged in my assumptions about the nature of the material world in an impossibly beautiful way.
That’s the point of it I think.
In the actual moment, they were certainly marvelling. Approving, impressed maybe. They didn’t act as though it were a miracle, though. More like it was an as-yet-unexplained … feat.
From my side I was thinking: Well alright, the job today is to meditate. I will create a good first impression by doing the job very well. Their approving/impressed reaction was exactly what I wanted it to be, exactly what it should be.
One lady took me down the deserted hall to fetch some paperwork related to the hire. We chatted in quite the normal way.
