Дуглас Коупленд - Microserfs

The rain continued.

"It's no coincidence that as a species we invented the middle classes. Without the middle classes, we couldn't have had the special type of mindset that consistently spits out computational systems, and our species could never have made it to the next level, whatever that level's going to be. Chances are, the middle classes aren't even a part of the next level. But that's neither here nor there. Whether you like it or not, Todd, you, me, Dan, Abe, Bug, and Susan – we're all of us the fabricators of the human dream's next REM cycle. We are building the center from which all else will be held. Don't question it, Todd, and don't dwell on it, but never ever let yourself forget it."

Karla looked at me. "Dan, let's go out and get a Grand Slam Breakfast. I have $1.99 and it's burning a hole in my pocket."

Susan taped the following clipping from the Wall Street Journal to her door (which won't be hers much longer – she's moving soon): Sept. 3, 1993, a little while ago. The clipping was about the Japanese rainy season that started this year in June, and never ended:

A typhoon flooded the moats of Japan's imperial palace in downtown Tokyo. Imperial carp fled their home for the first time and flopped in knee-deep waters covering one of Japan's busiest intersections.

Susan's "totally right-lobe" now.

I tried to find her and ask her what she meant with the article, but she was out on Capitol Hill getting pixelated with her no-doubt right-lobed grunge buddies.

Susan quit the day after she vested and began "running with the wolves" – or so she announced to all of us the morning after her Vest Fest. She unveiled her new image as we were sitting in front of our Mitsubishi home entertainment totem, eating our last few boxes of Kellogg's Snak-Paks with plastic spoons, deconstructing old Samson and Goliath cartoons, and trying to figure out how/if to wake up my Dad, who was still passed out on Michael's bed.

Susan's previous image – Patagonia-wearing Northwest good girl – had been shed away for a radicalized look: bent shades, striped Fortrel too – tight top, Angela Bowie hairdo, dirty suede vest, flares, and Adidases.

"Wow," said Bug. "What a stud."

She stormed past us, stopped at the top of the stairs, said, ''Fuck it. I'm tired of being Mary Richards. I'm off to hold up a 7-Eleven," and then clomped down to the driveway.

I think she expected us to be a bit shocked, but you know, it's actually really great when a person reinvents themself. We finished our Froot Loops and soy milk.

Todd came up to me later tonight and said, "Dan, I wouldn't fuck around so much if I could meet somebody like Karla." This freaked me out and I got this awful feeling that I think is jealousy, but I can't be sure, because it was a new feeling, and nobody ever tells you what feelings are supposed to be like. But Todd saw this and said, "That's not what I meant, Dan. I'm not gonna jump her. Gimme some credit. But man, where do you find someone like her?"

"Yeah, she's something else," I said blandly, masking my interior burn. "She's so smart, but not just coding-smart. She thinks like a preacher, but not a by-the-books preacher. She believes in something."

Watched an old documentary about NASA. Then afterward I saw this documentary about how codfish have been gill-netted into extinction in Newfoundland in Canada, so I went out to Burger King to get a Whaler fish-wich-type breaded deep-fried filet sandwich while there was still time.

I think I'm going to keep my diary more regularly now. Karla got me to thinking that we really do inhabit an odd little nook of time and space here, and that odd or strange as this little nook may be, it's where I live – it's where I am.

I used to always think I had to have a reason to record my observations of the day, or even my emotions, but now I think simply being alive is more than enough reason. Unshackled!

Brillo

Chicken Marsala

WW3

Tonopah, Nevada

locate the source of urges

Woodside LosAltos Hills San Jose Space Cruiser

Superstar

Fear Uncertainty Doubt Crashed in a cornfield

UV rays

... arms armor ammo health

backlit PlexiglasNxSxT

Tetris

cat food System Seven

8

17

32

487

COBOL

Steak house Calorie factory

Melrose Place night tonight. We double-clicked onto the "BRAIN CANDY" mode. We're all addicts.

We like to pretend our geek house is actually Melrose Place.

Tonight Abe said, "I wonder what would happen if we all started randomly going nonlinear like the show's characters. What would happen if our personalities became divorced from cause and effect?"

"We could take turns going psycho," said Bug.

Susan, writing the words D-U-R-A-N/D-U-R-A-N on the proximal phalanges of her fingers, said, "You already are psycho, Bug. That doesn't count."

Susan read aloud bits from the Handbook of Highway Engineering:

"Improperly installed or unwarranted signals can result in the following conditions:

– Excessive delay

– Disobedience of the signal indications

– Use of less adequate routes to avoid the signal

– Increase of accident frequency"

She paused and looked at the fire for a while. "I wonder if this guy is alive and if he's married?"

I called to see if Mom was feeling better, and she was. She's signed up for swimming classes at the local pool. But the big news occurred when Dad got on the extension line and shouted at me, "I'm employed!"

"Way to go, Dad. I told you something would come up. What are you going to be doing?"

"Oh – this and that. Michael is certainly one bright young fellow. Odd. But bright."

"You're working for Michael?''

"I certainly am."

"At Microsoft?"

"No, he's starting something else, a new company."

"He IS? What are you working on there?" (*Shock*)

"And he's living in one of the spare bedrooms – can you believe it?"

(Good God!) "Yes, I can. And your job description?"

"Here, your mother wants to speak to you ..."

Mom chatted about being relieved with Dad's salary plus rent money flowing in. But the job description never arrived. Nor any clue about this mysterious new company.

We have a new word for vaporware: Sea Monkeys, as in, "ScriptX is really Sea Monkeys!"

Susan said, "Remember when you were a kid and sent away for that little nuclear family with Dad wearing a crown and everything, and instead all you got was ... brine shrimp ?"

Reading a book about viruses. Went into Boeing Surplus again. It was Monday, so all the new magazines were in.

Karla and I were here in my room, lying on my bed – bare legs akimbo – and we made this really embarrassing observation that neither of us have tan lines – that we spent all summer in the crunch mode to meet shipping deadline.

Karla began talking all Star Trekky again – the best thing about her.

She said, "I don't believe human beings store memory in our brains exclusively – there simply aren't enough storage slots or interconnective possibilities. And so if not in the brain, then where? I concluded that another viewpoint on memory was to see our bodies as 'peripheral memory storage devices.'"