Дуглас Коупленд - Microserfs

So Emmett went back to work. We, of course, were silent, but the instant-mail was flying on each other's screens. Blink blink blink. We were riveted. Poor Emmett's in love, and Susan doesn't want that. Or maybe she likes this type of relationship. People always get what they need. She's truly earned her stud medal on this one.

I went to Price-Costco. My weekly job is to purchase in-office snacks, all set up in an IKEA shelf unit in the kitchen. Everything costs 750.

Mr. Noodles (for Dusty)

Pop-Tarts

hot chocolate mix

Cup-A-Soup

granola bars

Chee'tos

Famous Amos cookies

Fig Newtons

microwave popcorn

BBQ potato chips

Karla, Bug, and I went on a tour of "Multi-Media Gulch" later in the afternoon. What a joke. There's nothing there! Or rather, there's lots of stuff around the north end of the Bay Bridge, in around the warehousey neighborhood – many companies doing cool things – but there's no public interface, so you might as well be in any warehouse district anywhere. No T-shirt stands.

We met up with Jeremy, who, as it turns out, is highly into body manipulation: tattoos, piercings, and (scary) branding. He's really political and he talks about queer-this and queer-that and the whole thing reminds me of our office's recent fling with Marxism, and I try and pretend it's fascinating, but my mind does wander off. Like when someone starts describing their stereo.

I couldn't help thinking, though, that it was a good thing Bug moved to San Francisco – being gay is such a nonissue here. You could be an ultrapolitical gay activist or a gay Republican; there's no overriding clique dominating. And fortunately for Bug, there seems to be a bigger dating pool to draw from than in Coeur d'Alene or Seattle.

Anyway, Bug, Jeremy, Karla, and I stopped by Body Manipulations on Fillmore Street. The guy in front of us was waiting to get a "Gigue" – a pierce inserted onto the strip of skin between the scrotum and the anus.

"But your body is your hard drive!" said Karla, to embarrassing withering stares of everybody in the store.

Karla, Bug, and I blanched and Bug asked Jeremy if his earring could wait. Jeremy was furious and stormed out. So the piercing's on hold, at least temporarily, and Bug is in the doghouse with Jeremy. Bug said, "I think there's a lot about this new culture I don't quite understand yet. I'm coming to it pretty late."

Whenever Abe e-mails me, he uses a fast-food-related tag line. I've compiled a list. Herewith:

Ample Parking

Ask Your Manager about Unionizing ... No, Don't

Batter-fried Batter: Yum

Backlit Plexiglas Signs: Excellent BB Gun Targets

Cat Food: The Next Level

Customers Are Taking too Many Free Napkins

e coli. 157 Bacteria Colonizes Undercooked Patties

Elderly Employees Easier to Bully

Everybody Fears Clowns

Fishwich... Real Word... Yes or No?

Focus Grouping Deems Lamb-burgers Unpopular

Garish Color Schemes Discourage Loitering

Gift Certificates Make Shitty Presents

Hairnets

Hard to Envision Ronald McDonald Dating

More Orange Drink Machines at Birthday Parties

Muzak Discourages Loitering Teen Thugs

Pictures Instead of Words on Cash Register Buttons

Pseudo-randomly Shaped Beef Patties

Shamrock Burgers Unlikely

Swan Nuggets Tempt Yuppies

28 Dead in Random Sniping Bloodbath

Unhappy Meals – And That's Okay

Uniforms Must Affirm Asexuality

Younger Staff Exhibiting Insolence

Susan and Emmett have made up, but Karla says that it’s going to be tempestuous between them. Susan likes bullying, and Emmett likes to be bullied. They were down in the parking lot earlier on filling up partially rotted green bell peppers with red marine alkyd enamel paint which they will then hurl at sexually exploitative billboards later tonight. Emmett wears the same expression on his face that Misty wears whenever Dusty twirls her around like a Maypole. He's just frighteningly in love. I mean, I love Karla, but Emmett seems, what is the word ... enslaved.

*UH OH*.

But then, Susan's the obsessive type, too. So they're a pair.

Mom and I took Misty for a morning walk today and Mom was chattier than usual. Her work at the seniors home has her thinking quite a bit, it seems. Between the seniors home, swimming, the library, and Dad, she's so busy nowadays.

In order to keep up with "us kids," Mom's been reading (and clipping) yet more articles about this @$&*%!! Information Superhighway. The enormity of her clipping enthusiasm seems to have made the issue penetrate her consciousness. She was asking me about brains and memories.

I wasn't about to go into Karla's theories of the body and memory storage because discussing my body with my mother is something I'm simply unable to do. But I did say, "There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything. Being able to find things is what's important."

"What about if you don't use a memory often enough, then. If a memory isn't used enough, does it become irretrievable?"

"Well – aside from proton decay and cosmic rays eliminating connections, I think memories are always there. They just get ... unfindable. Think of memory loss as a forest fire. It's natural. You shouldn't really be afraid. Think of the flowers that grow where the land had just been destroyed."

"Your grandfather had Alzheimer's. Did you know that? Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this."

"I already knew. Dad told me about it years ago. Was it fast?"

"Worse – slow."

Misty became instant friends with a passing jogger who had been taking her pulse. Dogs have it so easy.

Mom said, "I've been wondering if maybe our time here on earth has been protracted out for too long – by science – and wondering if maybe it's not a bad thing to expire before our government-waranteed 71.5 years have elapsed."

"Mom, this isn't one of those 'I-have-cancer' talks, is it?"

"God, no. It's just that seeing all those old people at work, so lonely and forgetful and all – it makes me have some dark thoughts. That's all. Oh listen to me natter. How selfish."

Mom was always taught that other people's problems were more important than her own.

"Anything else ... ?" I asked.

"And now I'm wondering. That's all."

"Wondering what?"

"I seem to feel myself losing ... myself. This sounds so bored-housewife. But I'm not bored. But I have problems, too." I asked her what they were, but she said that problems were best not spoken of, and this is, perhaps, my family's main problem. "I'm joining a metaphysical discussion group."

"That's it?"

"You don't think I'm nutty?" (I have never heard anybody use the word "nutty" unironically before, and there was a satellite-link pause before I could say, "God no!" Karla and I have a metaphysical discussion group between ourselves almost every night.)

"Of course not."

Spent the latter part of the day set on "WANDER," cruising this glorious Bay with Karla. The freeways – they're so gorgeous – the 280 cresting the big hill going north, past all the Pacifica and Daly City exits; the Highway 92 cloverleaf to Hayward and Half Moon Bay off the 101. So sensual, so infinite, so full of promise.