…or, Thoughts on sending an elf to do a dwarf’s work.

Neal Stephenson, author of the outstanding cyberpunk novel Cryptonomicon, divides the world into three sorts of people: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Most people, he says, are Men. They do whatever it is they do for a living, and that’s about it.

Elves, by way of contrast, are theorists. They create novel things, or explore in novel ways; Thomas Edison was an elf, as was Albert Einstein.

Dwarves are the ones who take the theory and turn it into reality. Henry Ford was a dwarf; he took an idea already invented, the automobile, and figured out a way to produce it so that it was within reach of everyone.

I am an elf. Most particularly, I like designing unconventional toys for grownups.

So why was I up until one o’clock in the morning yesterday with lordfuckbeast, cutting metal to build a plastic molding machine to put this novel toy into production? Because when you don’t have a very large amount of seed capital behind you, sometimes an elf must do double-shift as a dwarf, as well. (As a side note, lordfuckbeast maintains that prototyping is elf’s work; I say, Building equipment for production is dwarf’s work. So there.)

So there it is. An elf can, sometimes, do a dwarf’s work, though dwarves’ work is a nasty business that makes one quite grimy and tired.

And off I go to Valentine’s Day dinner with kellyv. For the evening, I shall be neither elf nor dwarf.

I rarely remember my dreams. So rarely, in fact, that it’s always a surprise when I do.

So imagine my surprise when I had not one but two dreams last night, both of which I remember quite clearly.

In the first, demi moved to Florida and hosted a large party, to which I and several friends (including scarlete, lordfuckbeast, and feorlen) were invited. The most memorable thing about this party was the large and patient, but quite frustrated, spider that kept spinning a web across the doorway. People would come in, the web would be destroyed, and the spider would construct another across a different doorway.

In the second dream, the Mafia was trying for some reason to assassinate me. So I took a pair of horns, stuck them on my head, and phoned the Mob boss on his cell phone, saying “It’s open season on Yak Boy–come and get me!” Then I ran around town, teasing the Mafia hitmen and making fun of them–I’d dress up like an electrician, for example, and stand on a ladder pretending to fix a sign while they ran by beneath me, then call the boss on his cell phone and tease him some more–“Your guys just walked right past me, and I’m wearing horns, and they still didn’t see me! How dumb is that?”

I have no idea what either of these dreams means, though I welcome all attempts at analysis. 🙂

I’m flying out to California at the end of March to visit lacaba. I’ll be out there for a week…I’m really looking forward to it!

Life has its ways of playing tricks on us…I never believed I’d even attempt a long-distance relationship (leastwise, not one that started out long distance. Of course, feorlen is in the process of moving to California herself, but she was local when first we met.)

In other news: I’ve been spening a lot of time trying to prepare for the upcoming convention, MegaCon, that scarlete and lordfuckbeast and my wife kellyv and I are attending two weeks hence. I’ve been frantically trying to get the CD-ROM version of my game Onyx ready to go…

Finally got time to process the film of last weekend’s photo shoot with alyyss and kattvomitt, so I should be able to start printing on Sunday. This is happy news; i haven’t been in the darkroom in a long time, and I miss it.

My wife is one of the coolest people in the world.

It’s been a long and hectic week, and I’ve been so stressed out over it that she bought me an hour-long massage on Saturday. First professional massage I’ve ever had. It was absolutely wonderful, though I found myself mentally taking notes during the massage… “Hey, that works very well!” “Hmm…interesting, I’ll have to try that.”

I love giving massages, but haven’t ever had any formal training. It’s always nice to meet people who have skills I don’t have, or who are better at things than I am…I can steal the benefit of their experience. 🙂

Did a photo shoot with kattvomitt and alyyss and a friend of theirs whose LJ name I don’t know this afternoon. Had a great time, got some photos I’m highly optimistic about (though I haven’t had time yet to develop the film, much less make a contact sheet). All in all, an excellent end to a weekend that started rather poorly. But more of that is on lordfuckbeast‘s journal here, so no point in me going on about it.

My wife is talking to lacaba right now. I want to talk to her, dammit! My wife gets to have all the fun… >pout<

On Sunday, my wife and feorlen and I spent some time with friends we see too seldom. It transpired that these friends are considering a romantic relationship with a person I know, and one of them asked me, point-blank, what I thought of the idea.

Oh, boy.

Long and bitter experience has taught me the folly of getting involved in the romantic affairs of another. Even on those occasions where I have been right, every time I’ve done it, I’ve been sorry.

And yet, here it was. The question had been asked; I was not volunteering the opinion, it had been solicited. And I have knowledge of a destructive pattern of dishonesty in the individual in question’s romantic situations in the past. Exactly the information that had been solicited.

And with reason. Apparently, some flags had already been raised. So there it was. Evading the question seemed close to intellectual dishonesty; saying I had no reservations would be overt dishonesty. So I ansswered the question as asked, to the best of my ability, and now I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and hoping that it doesn’t land on my head.

Which brings me to the crux of the matter, which is this:

None of this would be necessary if the person in question would Just. Be. Honest.

Why is that so difficult? I don’t understand. Is it really hat hard to figure out? Can dishonesty really become such a habit that you become blind to its consequences? Is it really so hard to see how much goddamn simpler your life is if you try to make a habit of honesty and integrity?

I mean, this person has a lot to offer–smart, witty, well-educated, capable of being compassionate and warm and giving and fun. So why? Why mar it with a habit of lies?

I know, I know–wasted potential, not hydrogen, is the most common element in the universe, and many are the people who have a lot to offer yet fall short of the mark. But still…

feorlen is moving.

When we first became involved, about ten years ago, she lived here in Tampa. Now she’s in Atlanta, which is about seven hours away by car or half an hour by plane…far, but not too far. We still see each other often.

The pressure has been growing for quite some time, however–calling her to San Francisco. It’s the right place for her to be, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is her career.

Still, it’s hard to bridge such a gap in a romantic relationship.

And so, I, the person who said he’d never be involved in a long-distance relationship, will soon find himself in two. Go figure.

URL of the Day: File this one under “You Gotta Be Shitting Me“: The Lion King teaches homosexuality.

=====

My wife has never before been exposed to “The Lord of the Rings,” or indeed to any other Tolkien.

I suppose i can’t really say too much about it. I have my own cultural illiteracies as well; I’ve never watched “Charlie’s Angels” or “Three’s Company” on TV, for example, and I’ve never seen so much as a single episode of “Leave It to Beaver.”

But anyway, she’s somhow managed to live without being exposed to the joys of Tolkien’s brand of fantasy, until now. She is currently deep in “The Return of the King,” having devoured “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Tours” in much the way a starving wolf might devour a Sirloin steak, and having seen the movie version of “The Fellowship of the Ring” twice. In fact, she’s ahead of me on “The Two Towers” as I write this, and takes great delight in teasing me about it. (I’ve read it a long time ago, but I’m rediscovering it as an adult.)

It’s fun to see her enjoying something so completely…

URL of the day: Who Cares?

=====

I have too many irons in the fire. Ever wonder what would happen if someone kept tossing balls to a juggler until the number of balls he was trying to keep in the air threatened to completely overwhelm him? That’s how I feel right now.

I have email sitting in my mailbox that I haven’t even had time to answer in the last three weeks…

Meeting with a patent lawyer on Wednesday. LordFuckBeast and I are slowly but steadily moving ahead on The Project. It’s driving me crazy…it takes so much work to make anything happen, it’s just absurd.

Still, I suppose I should be happy it takes so much work to accomplish anything worthwhile. Barrier to entry, and all that. But even so, the roadblocks the world puts in front of you are very frustrating sometimes. It’s almost like they do it with malice, though I know that isn’t so.

Paranoia is not in thinking everyone is out to get you. Everyone is out to get you. paranoia is in thinking they’re conspiring.

Well, I’m back from MacWorld San Francisco, finally, after spending the entire day from 9AM until midnight at the airport or in the air.

While feorlen and I were in SF, we had the unique pleasure of meeting altenra, who is an all-around cool chick.

I say “unique pleasure” because the first day I met her, she broke me, and sent me back to my hotel room damaged goods. Undaunted, I spent a second day with her, and she took me to a bathhouse, made me dirty, led me into a dark place, and covered me with chicken feathers.

And it isn’t what you think.

First day, she offered to take me on a walking tour of the city. Her: “How much walking can you do?” Me: “As much as you can. Do your worst!”

Fifteen miles later, she was still skipping and bouncing while I was limping along behind her. I finally hobbled back to the hotel, and spent the rest of the week limping around the convention.

The second day I spent with her, she took me to Sutro Baths, the ruins of an old nineteenth-century bathhouse on Ocean Beach:

You can’t tell from the picture, but rain and constant salt spray have turned the ground into a sea of slippery mud. Behind me as I took this image was a cave, which we went into, stopping along the way just long enough to get COVERED in mud.

“But the chicken feathers!” I hear you say. “Tell us of the chicken feathers!”

Ah, yes, the chicken feathers.

When nightfall comes in San Francisco, the temperature drops very, very fast. feorlen and I didn’t really realize that. We went to meet altenra on a sunny afternoon. Feorlen didn’t spend the whole day with us, but as night was falling, we were still out exploring, and it got suddenly very cold.

“The chicken feathers! The chicken feathers!”

I’m getting to the chicken feathers. She let me wear her down jacket. It sheds. I was wearing a black sweater underneath. Hence: Chicken feathers.

Ah, yes, one more point of interest:

Above Sutro baths is a museum of old penny-arcade machines. And video games, mostly dating back to the Golden Age of the Video Game (about 1980-1984). They had a Star Wars video game–an old vector game made by Atari.

I LOVED this game as a kid. in 1983, I could play for hours on one quarter; my high score was just over two million, nine hundred thousand points.

They had one! They had one at the museum!

First time I have played since 1984, and on altenra‘s quarter. Score: 300,000 points.