The Attic

9-27-97: Secret Identities
10-07-97: An Artist's Passion
10-23-97: Death Becomes Her
October 23, 1997: Welcome to the third installment of the Random Room. Just a random thought before I start (how appropriate): today is Mole Day. A mole, in chemistry terms, is 6.02 X 10^23. October 23. Get it? Happy Mole Day!
Anyway, I was forced to write this installment because something random happened to me today. I was talking to one of my friends when another one of my friends suddenly pointed at me and said, "It's so weird! I dreamed you were dead!" (Thanks, Brian.)
Well, that put a crimp in my day. I kept a somewhat straight face under the circumstances, and my friend continued, "And I was thinking, gee, it's too bad she's dead, she won't be able to finish her website!"
I admit, I'm a little superstitious about these things. I believe in G-d and His mysterious ways, and dreams are as mysterious as it gets. As for dreams about death, well... my other friend told me to drive carefully. I did.
Throughout the day, I thought about setting things in order if I did die. I've written my "will" a couple of years ago (I was, curiously, not depressed when I penned it) and I was fairly sure my family and friends could stick to it. My years are on the low end, so there would have been plenty of loose ends: things I've never done, people I've never met. But for a long time, my attitude has been not to count those unhatched eggs. If I have to make do with the life I've got now, it would be okay. No regrets in death.
But surprisingly plenty of regrets in life. I ticked it off: I hadn't finished that story, I hadn't talked to this person about something, I hadn't read these books. Risks I hadn't taken yet. Suddenly I realized, death was so easy to live with. You could have zero regrets about the way things were, but the worries about the future wouldn't stop. In death I could be proud of my past accomplishments; in life I still had so much work to do.
I think I'll be watching my step for the next few days. Not so much to avoid death, but to run into life a little more. Though I may still end up in hell, I think the afterlife is only the second biggest gamble ever conceived. It's still an egg that hasn't hatched. At least, in this life, we've got some idea of what we're playing for: the mystery.

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October 7, 1997: This is the second, and very tardy installment of the Random Room.
Before I get to the main topic, a few words about myself, your cryptic host. I have what some people refer to as "intelligence." Personally, I don't think I'm a genius; I've done way too many stupid things to be that. But generally, I gravitate towards genius or its appearance. More accurately, I drift towards people with mastery. It's as if every da Vinci and Einstein reminds us that the human race is not all bad and there's still hope yet.
Just the other day I became acquainted with a true genius: James Joyce. No, he didn't barge into my house (I doubtless would have been short on the ale), but in a way he barged into my life. For those of you who aren't stuck in the same class, Joyce was an Irish writer who favored the "stream of consciousness" narrative. In other words, he wrote exactly what the character was thinking. No structure. No grammar. No spelling. No coherent organization. No sense.
But, oh, the meaning! Three layers of sing-song prose, Irish in-jokes and seventeen different languages! Literally lifetimes sacrificed for the study of his books. My head was ready to explode when my teacher explained it to us, and I'd only read two and a half pages!
So what's the point? That Ulysses should never be read without another book to translate it? That you can't read Finnegan's Wake if you're not reading aloud? That most readers are initially going to miss the sexual images in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?
Not really. The fact is, once I got over my brief amorous spell (soon to be replaced by a longer one), I realized that I knew very few smart people who were so dedicated to such an abstract cause: literature. For instance, Bill Gates is dedicated, but only to his money. I'm sure the density of Joyce's genius would have thinned had he acted the disenfranchised teenager and bummed his life away. Does anybody focus anymore, in this age of the sound bite? Has the age of Joyce's concentrated genius passed? Does anyone, no matter what their I.Q., dedicate themselves to causes?
The answer, fortunately for the human race, is yes. There are focused, enormously dedicated people out there. Are you one of them?

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September 22, 1997: This is the very first installment of the Random Room. Comments and questions are encouraged.
This week's special is on secret identities. On the Internet, secret identities are everywhere. Some people think it gives a person special powers over other people, but I don't see why since everyone else has a secret identity. Are secret identities just for superheroes? If so, which one was it? I mean, I'm sure Superman was always relieved to greet Clark Kent in the mirror. After all, the guy had a real name, a steady job, and didn't go swoop around in bright tights.

I think we all have different facets to our personality. On a first date, for instance, it may not be appropriate to reveal that your favorite food is pork rinds. We project different identities to different people. That's the real superpower: reinventing yourself.

Does your identity necessarily symbolize who you are? It depends. Here's how to find out: go to a public phonebooth, strip off all your clothes--- no, no, don't do that! I mean, listen to yourself for a while. Ring yourself up. Answer it (don't let the machine pick up.) Scribble it on a sticky note. Who was on the phone, dear? Some guy from Krypton.

© 1998 milesphile@hotmail.com

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