Flavigula

I refuse to believe that this particular entry is for purposes of testing the new layout of Martenblog. I worked on rebuilding it system from scratch during the whole of the flimsy weekend. Why was the weekend flimsy, you ask? Well, my pugnacious starbeam, I felt light, as if I were drifting from one state of consciousness to another. I most likely was. And probably still am.

I began my reconstruction with a new framework dubbed Alkali. The result was a wasted five or six hours fighting with the DOM “template” language and update strategies. Since you won’t read the documentation, I’ll expound a bit. Instead of Redux’s store, which is a moderate step away from hierarchical data-structures that cause my skin to grow seeping warts and boils from sheer frustration, a concept of independent Variables are its core. Like Redux’s store, updates to Variables flow through the system and can dynamically synchronise the DOM. I am fond of this idea, as the Variables are decoupled, unlike Redux’s store.

Unfortunately, the library is in its infancy and five hours of fighting with broken update flow deterred me from continuing. I abandoned Alkali and fell back on the now familiar Redux, to complete the whole of the code in two days or so, sans bugs. Martenblog code. Yeah… it’s still called mb-alkali. Perhaps it remains that way to inspire me to return to the nacient framework in the future.

On 25 December, 2005, I was inspired by a woman named Jana that I only met once at Na Květnici during December of the previous year, methinks, or even of the same year. Since I have begun to see through the flimsy partitions between universes, my estimation of time has drifted from its exacting nature into a sort of muddled horse-shoe toss.

What was I inspired to do?

I was inspired to type into my livejournal (my surrogate blog at the time) One Hundred Things About Me. Throughout the epochs, I’ve conversed with many concerning personality traits and the flimsy border between one’s core, one’s malleable cultural / environmental residue, the liquid crust wrapping those two, and vapor without. The opinion of many, including the jaunty Shambal Brambel, is that the core is static. No amount of glory or tragedy can deform it. As for me, I do my best to put chips into it with the pick-axe of Sweet Entropy.

Those three exterior layers are sloshing around with my every step.

1. I am sterile.

Well, isn’t everyone, one way or another? I chose to not have children and I have no regrets. I honestly believe my life is better or at least more varied for it. Since I am a fan of diversity in both thought and action, the electricity that seared my ducta deferens was a boon.

These days, and most probably throught the majority of my days, I am (and have been) more concerned with intellectual and creative sterility. It is a subtle plague that seeped into western culture. I’ve watched it mature all my life. It is a maturity of diminishing returns. Younger and younger, people turn to comfort in stagnation. Routine bares less and less fruit, but nurtures familiarity. Personally, one of my greatest fears is the death of my personal creative process. I’ve weathered years of aching depression during which this creative process was pushed aside to make room for interpersonal relationships and / or work.

I haven’t yet had a stereotypical mid-life crisis, and hope I never shall, but I do muse about mortality when I sit back and take notice of the passage of this flimsy time. The glimpses of a corpse that one day will be empty of my consciounsess goad me to abandon those aforementioned interpersonal relationships and work. Write or compose, or at least fill tangible or virtual notebooks with ideas, ya cunt.

So, actually, fuck sterility.

2. I have a child that I’ve never met.

People (mostly women) over the epochs have implied that I am a callous bastard for not being concerned about this point. But dub me what you may, thoughts about the child I conceived in 1993 and his fate never appear.

3. I like wearing non-matching socks.

Living with women (with some well needed rest periods) for the most part of the last eleven years has mostly eradicated this routine. However, this particular point illustrates a a part of my core that either was installed by genetics or my niggard hatred of the homefront.

Of course, I am reminded of Dave. One of his modus operandi of morning (or more frequently, mid-afternoon) ritual dressing was to grab two random argyle socks from a drawer and place them upon his toesies. I hope it is still one of his modus operandi.

I perused a thread on Reddit some weeks, months, years, decades or epochs ago entitled something like Subtle Ways You Rebel. Though the course of the thread was more humourous than anything else, it reminded me of the importance of defying the uniform. Fashion is a bane. It rapes then buries needs to rise above homogeneity in shallow graves. It uses the industrial file of ephemeral cultural quirks to smooth rebellious crags.

Remind myself to continue to think. From today, subtly, non-matching socks once again. Don’t forget, you leprous slag!

4. I worked in the porn business.

I’ve written at length about this one.

5. I don’t like porn at all.

I’ve written at a lesser length about this one, which was directly produced by the previous.

6. Genmaicha tea is my favourite drink.

I do not possess any Genmaicha at the moment. I shall rectify that in time, most likely by consuming it in Praha next week. One thing I miss about Praha are čajovný. Nothing like them exists in Logroño, or anywhere in Spain that I have experienced.

Christián and I splurge every centimo we own constructing one in a bleak pueblo in Andalucia. We work until our limbs are scabbed nubs. We sit, night after night, backs slumped against the wall of a dim room filled with hookah smoke and fractured spanish barking. The clientele relieve themselves onto our wobbling forms. We stink of urine and our own festering wounds. We die.

To be continued.