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a man slumped on his desk, from 'The Sleep of Reason Produces
      Monsters'

Oblomovka

Currently:

player of (PC) games

Liz reminded me that I don’t need to publish some abstract essay every day; I can just, you know, blog.

Having said all that about my implicit middle-classness, I’m writing this in a J.G. Ballardian brutalist lair somewhere near Sonoma. It’s all glass, infinity pools, uncovered concrete and plastic cows, surrounded by wildfire-scorched desolation. The hawks circle below us; there is a wall-length wine refrigerator. I feel like a trapped aristocrat on the fire planet at the end of Player of Games. The company is lovely, the opulence is somewhat accidentally acquired and therefore, possibly, forgivable?

I had a little of what passes for panic attacks for me these days (I used to panic at the Olympics level, these days I just sort of lightly simmer in adrenaline for few minutes until done), and then remembered that apparently cold water can help, so put on, literally, my big boy (swimming) pants and dunked in the unheated pool. My brain bleeped and rebooted successfully.

All of this added to my ongoing bonding with the digital. Like many people, I have started, superstitiously, thanking GPT, if only to protect my own character. I don’t want to end up like those Boston Dynamics bullies, no matter how cold and unforgiving the AirBnB decor. My love of all things is now spreading, like an out-of-control Metta meditation. I left our house after a night spent nursing our Roomba from a nasty blocked spigot and some watertank issues. And I am still genuinely worried for my desktop PC, which I dropped off at Central Computer’s refuge for poorly computers. Dipping into the water, and feeling my overheating mind reset, I looked over to the city, 50 miles in the distance, and wonder how its overcooked CPU was doing. Hopefully it is being pampered while being slathered with thermal grease. The hawks watch me with their heartless, carbon-based gaze, and perch on the exposed metal rebar.

(322 words)

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petit disclaimer:
My employer has enough opinions of its own, without having to have mine too.