Oh, Dresden. The middle of the night cradles me. It arms me. It placates me. What shall I do?

I am at Mc Donalds at the moment and waiting.

WAITING

Waiting for the train which will roll me far away to the place I would like to be because sleep pervades every thought. Well, perhaps the vodka does, as well, but I really don’t feel it.

I met a couple of dudes tonight. I forget their names, which is unfortunate. One was a music lover, as am I. We traded songs for a simple amount of time. Heh. That means two hours or so. He reminds me of Wayne. Wayne - the wayne I destroyed. Did I? Sadly, I believe I did. His autistic brother made me feel it intensely, though he denied it. It went like this:

Wayne should not rely on other people to give himself his life, to succeed. I have done it myself without anyone’s help. See this design on this fucking shirt? I did it! I fucking did it!

Wayne did nothing. He wanted into the IT business because it was a fashionable thing to do. He used you.

Wayne gave me his homework. We were stoned and drunk. We were listening to the MIX I had made for Brynn, which included Porcupine Tree and Stolen Babies, among others. That was one of the best nights of my life. I still have the scraps of paper on which I made Wayne write Haiku. Well, I did, too.

We were friends then, but we are not now.

Who knows where he is.

He gave me his homework to do for him. I was insistent that he’d do it in Haskell, but Java was his professor’s thought. I wish I’d know Clojure then, for I’d have tried to teach it to him in that moment. Of course, it’d have been impossible because of the immense amount of alcohol which pervaded the evening.

So, as the week progressed, I binged. Yeah, I binged. So Wayne’s homework was never done. I sat in the Thai place on that fucking street I cannot remember the name of. I regurgitated my knowledge of functional programming onto this laptop on which I am typing. None of it was about Wayne. I’d left his homework at Cranbrook.

Now, that homework sits in a box in Seminole, Texas.

I wasn’t aware, as most people aren’t when recovering from a fabulous binge, that what I had not done had destroyed a person’s journey into the world.

Nick (Wayne’s brother) told me that he thought Wayne shouldn’t blame me. I’m not sure who I blame now. I sit in McDonalds in Dresden thinking about it.

I believe it affected someone.

I just finished my contribution to clj-record, an open souhttps://github.com/inhortte/clj-recordrce wrapper around clojure.java.jdbc which imitates (rather meekly at the moment) Ruby’s Active Record. I added the has-and-belongs-to-many association. The code is here. Now I can truthfully add open source contributions to my CV. Heh

(clj-record)
(here)

Now a certain error is being an irritant. It looks like this:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Key must be integer

Here is the code spouting the error:

(defpage "/expand/:id" {:keys [id]}
  (let [e (entry/get-record id)]
   (normal-entry e)
   (expand-contract-link "contract" e)))

As any observant mustelid can see, there is nothing wrong with that code according to the Noir documentation. I shall pull out pieces of my pancreas for a few more minutes flummoxing myself about it.

(Noir documentation)

I dislike it greatly when a problem solves itself, and especially if it is just from tinkering a bit.

Here is the code:

(defpartial expand-contract-link [which e]
  [:br.clear]
  (link-to {:id (str which (:id e))}
           "#" which)
  [:hr.clear])

(defpartial ajax-hovno []
  [:script "ajax_hovno();"])

(defpartial normal-entry [e]
  (:entry e)
  (expand-contract-link "contract" e)
  (ajax-hovno))

(defpartial truncated-entry [e]
  (trunc (:entry e))
  (expand-contract-link "expand" e)
  (ajax-hovno))

; Ajax paths                                                                    
(defpage "/expand/:id" {:keys [id]}
  (normal-entry (entry/get-record id)))

(defpage "/contract/:id" {:keys [id]}
  (truncated-entry (entry/get-record id)))

I’ve begun porting Sheepblog (IE, this thing you are looking at right now) from Ruby/Sinatra to Clojure/Noir. I am in the beginning phases, but I believe that the database schema will stay the same for now.

New features

• When not creating or editing a post, topics will set the session key :topic to the topic’s id. Any look at /rutabaga will show only posts which pertain to the set topic.
• Multiple user capability. Hopefully Christopher will eventually post something.
• Comments, by user or anonymous.

First problem!

clojure.contrib.sql no longer exists. Or, rather, it exists in an outdated form which breaks everything in sight with an unsightly getRoot not found or somesuch error. Use clojure.java.jdbc instead.

I postulate that IT humans who are more interested in hardware and low-level programming (such as machine and assembly code and possibly C) are more likely to be interested in repetitive, logical tasks. They are also the ones who listen to Techno whilst working (and whilst doing other repetitive activities).

Others, who enjoy the elegance of high level languages are more creative, more holistic, and overall better people.

Heh.

I thought it’d be beneficial to some future thoughts to record something Justin just wrote to me:

It’s a weakness in my character to favour accuracy over some other more meaningful and human parameters.

I went to lunch yesterday with Hynek. We had sparse contact for years and are just recently becoming close again. Close is a rather extreme word in this matter, but I use it because I don’t really think that anyone is actually close to Hynek in the normal sense of the word. What I mean is this: Becoming emotionally close to Hynek is simply like becoming close to my shittypie. Hynek is an emotionless machine who responds similarly as I’d imagine one with a high level of artificial intelligence might.

I may add that Acy, over the last few years, has struck me as such, as well.

Hynek actually stated during our conversation that he has no emotions. He (and his girlfriend Nina) have learned from observation to mimic emotions of those around them sufficiently to satisfy those with whom they interact, but have no real deep feelings at all.

I conclude that this will be the race of the future. No, not the humans of the future, but the race of the future. This race will consist of thinking machines which, during the times they have to interact with the remaining humans, they will be able to imitate emotions plausibly enough to satisfy, but they will have no understanding of emotion on a fundamental level.

I also conclude that emotions are chemical and the wiring of this future race will not be able to mimic the biological electricity which cause emotions.

This is also the reason beings like Acy and Hynek only comprehend mechanized techno music and its ilk. The arts humans hold dear - those which appeal deeply to the emotions - will vanish.

Why does sparsity of creativity come with age?

• Commitments such as work? Family?
• Alcoholism?
• Lethargy?
• Lack of inspiration?
• Cynicism?

I have no family, or so I like to tell myself. Perhaps I’d count Victor as family if I had to name people. Maybe Tony. Certainly Christopher. Why are they all from Texas? I left that place wanting to rid myself of anchors and the energy sucking apparati of familiarity. I have gone on to be less than fastidious to any new anchor which happened along. Did lack of family, or my perception of lack of family hurtle me into a seething world of would be families brandishing fish hooks with nubile wenches impaled on them as bait?

There is not much to say about alcoholism.

Lethargy is a bitch. It is, partially, all of the above, or a symptom of them. It riddles the marrow of my bones. It atrophies my muscles and even more so my muted neurons. Conquering it would be climbing to the peak of the unclimbable. It’s better just to skirt the base, eh?

Inspiration exists in every blue sign I see through the window in passing marking another settlement. There is no excuse but the previous point as to lack of inspiration.

The creature which wore this skin in 1999 was also a cynical fool. But, as I said, he was not as jaded as he thought he was. When I look back on this in 12 years and write I am reminded of in whatever form of journal I might be using then, I need to say to myself that I was much less cynical and jaded in 2011 than I am now.

I am reminded of. Those are the words I began many a journal entry with. I am reminded of the journal entries which I began with I am reminded of, especially in April of 1999. You see, I am on a train now, much as I was then. My direction is the same as it was then. My destination is different, however.

I shall pass through Usti Nad Labem, but not stop. Dresden will occupy a few hours later in the day.

The resurgence of communication with Hela has awakened a wash of memories from that age. I’d visit sometimes twice a week. We’d sit in her over-furnished flat and listen to music, eat soup and drink Fernet. Well, I was probably the only of us who drank Fernet. I suppose she chose wine. I am reminded of the fact that I’d spice her soup with some chili paste or another to increase its sharpness to a level of my liking.

On the ride to Usti, I’d pen in my hand-written journal (that Victor now has) I am reminded of, but I cannot think now what the things were that I was reminded of. Surely the turning of wheels beneath me did not remind me of much. I had been in the Czech Republic for less than a year. The only wheels which had carried me before the intermittent trains were the rubbery and bland tyres of my Subaru. They were wholly unlike the wheels of a train.

Yet, it was the movement that always fascinated me.

Picturesque landscape pans by and I write. Or I would write. Or, better, I did write. But I did not usually capture the images from the window in my writing, but instead images directly from the emotional chaos of my mind. Those are the workings of true drama, I could say, but I’d rather like to think they were babbling melodrama. I don’t necessarily fault my writing from that time, just my instability both mentally and lifestylistically.

The subject of this entry has a banal double meaning. I was a different age in 1999, for sure, but it was also a different age of my life. By age, I mean a very different person wore this skin. I criticized myself with melodrama last paragraph, but the creature who wears the same skin now is nostalgic for that simpleton who thought of himself as such a complex entity. I admire his spontaneity, his rash decision making process, and his naivete. I admire that he was far less jaded than he thought he was.

I admire that he was unattached.

But he looked for attachment at every bend of his twisty, melodramatic road. He sought it! He wanted it. Of course, he eventually got it many times and look where it has left him. Well, HIM. It has left him mostly dead with another inside his skin, afraid of constant change which used to stimulating him beyond measure.

Christopher wrote:

It will be nice for you to spend the time there, I imagine. Do you associate with anyone else while you are there? I find myself quite isolated here, which is a drag. I have Anne of course, which is great…I would be lost without her, but it would be good to have others I can relate to. My coworkers are aliens to me. Or I suppose I am the alien…

He’s speaking of my time in Nova Scotia, of course. Had I been there alone, I surely would have associated with others more. I find myself in a bubble when somewhere with a mate. Not a friend, but a mate. I can otherwise be very outgoing, and as Loyal used to say, extroverted. I am interested in others and their outlooks.

The only one I communicated with regularly (besides Henderson and Gretel) with was Hope. She is insightful, compassionate and far too trusting. This negative aspect of her personality goes with the territory, I suppose.

And now, in Prague, I contrast my time now in this city with my time ten years prior (approximately) in the same city. I was swamped with relations. I recall that every evening was booked with a different friend, a different experience, and a new discovery. I was doused in bliss. Now, it is all isolation. Renata is the only person I have plans with (lunch tomorrow). I saw Hynek once last week.

I realize this is a sorry state of existence, approaching, slowly, vacuum-like.

We walked two nights ago around the Praha 13 community center and I longed to join the small throng there in the small acoustic concert they were attending. A wall stood between myself and the experience, however. I couldn’t tear down this wall without ripping out one lung of my current life.

A can say the same about the Smaller One as Christopher says about Anne, and I wonder that the fact that we feel we’d be lost without them is actually a part of the wall which holds us away and aloof from the rest of our surroundings.

Who needs them, really?