Half an ass, half an ass, Onward

In which our Hero is already up and figures why not take another minute to joodle some of the things in his hindbrain

Lessee….

Canadian Thanksgiving. Turkey, eh?

A good time was had. The cousins (kids is probably straining credulity now as they’re in their 20s) came upstairs looking for me. It seems they know both that I like to hide and where I tend to go. But truthfully, I do withdraw, even in parties, for a moment of quiet and frankly of oxygenation.

Moonbeam is finishing her final year of high school and is faced with the daunting array of university applications. I want to tell her that it doesn’t matter, that she’ll get through it and as much work as it seems, it will pass. We talked about some of the personal questions that she’s struggling with and I told her not to stress about a little bit of redundancy in the answers. If “five things that define you” overlaps with “activities” and other things, that’s kind of expected, isn’t it? The things that define you are the things that you do.

I remember sweating the essays, but I also remember that in the end it was just a matter of saying something that didn’t sound completely stupid, and that made the points that needed to be made. Just like all the billion other applicants.

Moonbeam wants to be a doctor. She even knows what flavour of doctor she wants to be, though I can’t help but think that she’s possibly romanticizing aspects of her intended profession of squirrel-taxidermist. She worries about workload, and getting there. She admits that she also worries about how the family will afford her studies. And I laugh a little because I know that it doesn’t matter. Her parents will take out loans and so will she, and she’ll get to where she has to go. And frankly, if she doesn’t get to the first school she wants, or the second, she just has to apply to the third, or the fourth. A favourite here has been a shining example of that kind of commitment to the mission, and also of the specific options to take. Kind of wish I could hook the two of them up to talk, but right now it’d be silly.

She also told me about one of the girls who auctioned her virginity for millions, and about considering being a phone sex operator because “you don’t really have to do anything and it pays good[sic].”

In a very cold and dispassionate sense, she’s right that these are options available to her. But the best I could come up with to explain the choice to her was to tell her this: Every choice you make sticks to you a little and you can’t entirely let them go. For everything, but especially things like that, it changes how you see things and how you feel about them. And sometimes all you can do is try to pick the path that you regret least. It’s not even about avoiding regret, it’s just about trying to minimize it.

She seemed to understand what I was saying, and asked me if I had any regrets. I smiled at her and said yes. Yes, I do.

She, however, doesn’t know that she has regrets yet and wondered if it was a matter of age. I agreed. Some people are exposed to more when they’re young, but for the most part, school makes for a relatively protected environment, compared to later, when you’re in the world, and you’re defining your own person.

The Mouse dropped her phone and broke the screen. But with the help of her supervisor, she ordered a replacement LCD online, took apart the phone, and put in the new screen. The phone looks good as new. And I am proud beyond measure that she had the guts to do that.

Willow called today for tech support. She’d recorded an interview for school on her phone and despite having used the same process repeatedly, this time, everything was playing at chipmunk speed. It took a few minutes, but I talked her through installing audacity, importing PCM files, and then tried a few filters till I realized what was going on. So I made her re-import the file, and then I told her to change the sample rate.

And it worked. She was thrilled. Till I made her do the rest of the install to export an MP3 (need the LAME library). I was thrilled, because I haven’t worked with PCM files since *I* was in university but I managed to remember how to debug the problem.

Nocturne called for tech support with her router. She was hungry so she was a little grumpy about how long it was taking me to get her set up, but she cheered up when the connection was going.

On the other hand, between this and the PCM files, it’s supporting evidence for the theory of Serin as a generalist. I’ve never seen Nocturne’s router firmware before. I don’t work with that brand without hacking it so I don’t know what factory looks like. But working blind, I still managed to find the settings I wanted, even though I didn’t know the screens or the names of the drop downs. Generic capability, in strength.

Hollywood has been asking me questions about printing photos for the last few days. Finally today, I guess I answered something he wanted, because suddenly he dumped files into our shared folder and told me to print them. Uhhh okay. How many of each do you want?

So I cropped his pictures down to the necessary ratio, composited them into a simple image and printed his photos. And then a few hours later, he came back onto chat, and gave me some more directions.

I’m a little miffed because I don’t know why he can’t do it. But whatever, it’s just some pictures. And I learned how to use lightroom a little more (Awesome software, btw). And I fought down the compulsion to watermark the pictures with a Jack Serin Studios glyph, just barely.

Would have been funny though.

To me.

The reception was every bit of misery that I expected. The bride was lovely, the rest of the family were loud and cheesy. I said hello to people I hadn’t seen in ages and wasn’t especially thrilled to see now. Most tellingly, an aunt asked me why I was there because her sons, my childhood playmates) had both said emphatically no to coming.

My ears were ringing from the sound system, the food was uninteresting so I didn’t eat, and they said to be there by 6 but the program didn’t start till 7 and, unsurprisingly, they didn’t actually get things going till eight.

So four hours wasted on that dreadful detail. Talking about it afterward, my mom seemed to consider it a mitzvah of some kind, but my dad put it better when he said they just don’t get the hint and they really should.

For the record, I smiled at the bride and groom, and I shook hands with the people I met and smiled and made small talk. But I didn’t schmooze unless schmoozed at.

Gotta wake up in too few. So goodnight, or good morning.