The Robot's Thoughts

Lina

Got your "hand smitten" letter. When I went home for my sister's wedding, my parents gave it to me. Its a good thing it was hand delivered. The last month of my residence on craig steet, I would be hard pressed to say that the mail might've been tampered with.

Anyway, I enjoyed your letter and wanted to let you know that I'm open to idea of communication. You've got my IM name. You've got this blog url. You know how to get in touch. So I hope you and Joe are doing alright and that you're in a better shape to teach those pesky insects known as 4 year olds.

I went home this weekend for my sister's wedding. Michelle Wilson got married at in Inn at New Berlin by a Justice of the Peace. It was a beautiful ceremony. Her dress was very simple, but with an accent of elegance. It really fit her personality, everyone kept saying "This fits Michelle."

The whole day really did belong to her and Robert. I wish them nothing but the best. I wish them nothing but happiness in the journey they've begun.

I also met with my cousin on my mother's side, Mandy. Mandy is Aunt Judy's oldest daughter. And I met my brother-in-law, Lloyd, Mandy's Husband.
I haven't seen Mandy since I was 5 or 6 years old. So its been something like 17 years since I've seen any of my extended family.

We got along swimmingly. Lloyd is a progressive republician who follows politics and isn't shy at all about discussing religion. Talking to Lloyd really made me think about trying out a faith, even if just for cultural support. There's a lot of reasons, not all of which I'm going to go on about here, but I really enjoyed my converstaions with them. I never thought I'd be talking about taxes, death, god and all the big questions in life with cousins I've never really seen before. It's a large jump to take mentally for them, as well, because the 5 year old kid your brother dropped a family reunion and had to get 22 stiches in his head is now a college grad writing software in the nuclear industry.

And they're both Lawyers. Engineers, Lawyers....now all we need is a doctor.

Michelle and Robert, as well as my extended family all hung around for a day or so after the wedding. I spent the time with family. I wasn't the center of attention, but nobody's really seen me at family functions. I've always been busy with college and we've never really had the money to send me out. Now, with my job, I can afford to come home to visit friends and family. And a wedding is a good time to see family. My Uncle Alan gave me a generous sum for graduating college.

All in all, this was a really good weekend. I'm going to write about it some more, when I have some time. Right now I'm being anti social and ignoring my friend Andrew.

Soapbox will be moving to a mailing list format run off of christopherwilson.net
There will be posts about the options for all those involved.

Here's my daily adventure:

I get off work on time in order to go sign my lease. S 18th street in southside is truly going to become my home. Its so sweet.

So while i'm speeding off to southside, trying to make the appointment in time, I forget about one thing.
My gas gauage is digital. Digital and from the 80s.

So a quarter tank actually means empty, and empty means "Fuck you, you dumbshit."
Guess where the guage was pointing?

My car ran out of gas right before i could turn on to the carson street bridge. I had to drift down the street without brakes or power steering. You know that strech between downtown and southside that most consider part of the hill district?
Well, I do. Now.

I managed to yank the wheel hard enough when there was no oncoming traffic to turn down the street right after the carson street bridge, and between my emergency break and shifting from neutral to park, I managed to pull off onto the curb and come to a complete stop. My hazards were on this whole time so people could figure out that something was wrong.

As soon as I get out the car, some black kid sticks his head out the first floor window of the building I'm parked closest to, and spits at me.

What a friendly neighborhood!!!

A bunch of kids on their way to the south side YMCA ask if I need to call for help. I explain to them that my shit car doesn't tell me when I'm empty. And that I'll gladly pay them whatever I got in my wallet to watch my car so that nobody fucks with it.

So they take the $4 I have in cash, and I go to walk six blocks to the closest gas station.
I meet a nice man named Shaggy who loans me a 2 gallon gas can (which I pay to fill) in order to ressurect my car. On the way back, a women in a nurse's uniform with black sunglasses starts talking to me.

"Your car break down, honey?", she asks.
"Yeah," I reply, "its still a ways off."
"You want a girl?" she asks.
I can't really understand what she's asking. This woman had a voice that screamed "Too many menthol cigarettes and way too much bourbon."
"What?" I ask, thinking that maybe, just maybe the question was innocent
"You want a girl?"
At this point, a 5pm, being proposition by what has to be the ugliest prostitute since Jon's mom, I still cannot believe what I'm hearing. So I ask again.
"What?"
"You want a girl, honey?"

I just keep walking. No need to go there.
When I get back to my car, I find it intact. And one of the 10 year old kids actually is teaching himself ASP.NET. He knew the lingo. Go Geeks! I drove to the gas station, bought them some candy from a vending machine, and drove them to the south side community center.

Good deeds done by strangers at each side.
I have to admit when the first person I saw in that neighborhood looked at me and spit at me, I was a little bit on the defensive. But then as I talked to these kids, I realized that everyone's good in their own way. I flinched initially, but got over it quickly. Of course, you're going to be on the defensive when you're stranded. But the fact that I wasn't afraid of or for the people in that neighborhood (except the prostitute, she's still scary).

I've always believed that if you treat people with decency they will respond in kind. And indency and intolerance will bring the same back at you. Today was one of those days where I was validated. Introducing myself to a bunch of black teenagers I've never met before, and will probably never see again, I was able to make sure my car was safe and get directions. We both came away happy. Nobody took anything from my car. I didn't try to short them or accuse them or anything. I didn't pre-judge, and neither did they.
Contrast that to a certain ex-roommate who's afraid of black people. And can't even respond civilily to a note asking him to "do his share" and clean up an apartment, which we both use.

Its amazing that the kindness of those strangers actually gets rid of the awful taste such an inconsiderate fuckbag leaves in my mouth.

There's a health care, not warfare protest tomorrow at market square. At noon.
I'll be there, along with Lisa and Erin.

The weather will be nice, so feel free to come and bring your signs. I'm sure it'll be a good time.

I have found the appartment of my dreams.
It is motherfucking Kourtev Awesome.
That means its so sweet that if Kourtev saw it, he would get Wood.
More later.

Its always the same losing a friend.
Always so preventable, but not.

Always so unacceptable, but unchangable when that person shuts you out.
Ignores you.

You think you can be so patient and reasonable and wait it out
but you can't

You think demonstrating your good qualities will smooth things over
but it won't

You try not to return their animosity
but in the end, you do

Am I any different?
If soapbox was to give a piece of me to my friends, and to never lose touch
what's the point if you lose touch anyway

are we doomed to accept life as it is?
Is there no stance of ideals that could make others really understand?

why seek wisdom and community through adventures with friends when its so much easier to chase money and fake that oh-so-unattainable fulfillment?
why not be part of the problem?
why not be the asshole and not compromise?

why understand if others won't?
fuck, why. HOW did it get this way?

i can't quite figure out if i belong more to the digital world of machines or to the "real", analogue one.
and i can't decide which one is truly worthy of my time and dedication.
and if you can't find enlightment with or through someone, could you find it with or through something?

Am I any different?

Taking place at the cathedral commons.
Her: Oh hey.
Me: Hello stranger.
Her: What're you all dressed up for?
Me: This is what I wear to work. And I had to give my final presentation today for my last class. I just finished college about 30 minutes ago.
Her: Congradulations. Where do you work at?
Me: I'm a software engineer who who subcontracts for the nuclear industry.
Me: How're you doing in med school?
Her: I'm doing great.Its been a long time.
Me: I know. I stopped talking to you when you RSVP'd and didn't show up to my 20th birthday
Her: Oh.
Me: I figured between that and the little speech of "we don't hang out much because we have different friends" speech was a hint no idiot could ignore.
Her: I didn't mean it that way.
Me: Its hard to know what a person's thinking when they've stopped sharing their feelings with you. And I know that works both ways.
Her: Well you look good.
Me: So do you. Looks like life's been kind to us both in our time apart.
Me: I still have those pictures you want on CD. Would you like still want them?
Her: That would be great.
Me: I'll put them up on my web space and email your pitt address. I haven't forgotten it.
Her: Would you like to go out sometime and catch up?
Me: I think we should just see each other when we see each other. I have a new life, new friends, and this is best left as what we made of it in the past. I'm surprised I even waved to you. But its a force of habit when I see someone that matters to me.
Me: Have a doughnut. They're Krispy Kreme. My prof gave them out after we finished our presentation.
Her: *smiles*
Me: It was good seeing you, Christine.
Her: It was good seeing you, too.

That was a conversation that could've been. But at the last second, I turned my head away, caught my wave and tried to make it look natural, stared straight at my laptop screen until she was long gone.
I don't know if I'm a fool or the wiser man to walk the earth for that choice of actions.
I wonder if the difference is whether the heart laughs or cries, looking back on it all.
Funny how the mind works. What's out of reach is clearer then any memory. What you remember is what you want to remember. What you feel, when you allow yourself to really feel, is out of touch with memory.
One word. One word from a phone on november 17th, 1999. Grow.