The Best of All Possible Worlds
(23 December 2001 - 1 January 2002)
1 January 2002
[from
Toronto]
-Happy 2002, all! I must
admit I'm feeling
a little glum after hearing the break announcement, but all in all, it's looking
like a great
year upcoming.
-Hanging out with Lauren & Joe is good fun. If only
Joe & I
had known where we'd end up when we were at FFI in '97. Such crazy stuff has
elapsed since
then, & it all makes sense in the end. Or as of now, at the very
least.
-Too much
food...
31 December 2001
[from
Toronto]
-Ugh. The time to wonder is
never
useful. Late night lobbies have rarely been worthwhile anyway.
-Sweet
bastard. I
guess it's not a third day at Worlds without a member of Brandeis A being
incapacitated from
the start. Inauspicious.
-Well, we were out of it going into last round,
so it was all
pretty Zen. A true PMC (first speech of eight) was my final Worlds speech.
At least
I got to link US foreign policy to the September 11th attacks.
30 December 2001
[from
Toronto]
-Wow. The 2nd room in the
tournament.
& even though we got the 4, at least both Opp teams thought THEY
deserved the 4.
Ah well.
-That's a great collapse. A 4-3 after 2-1-2-1 is poor
form.
& now we're on the hairy edge of missing the break.
-That meal worked
out better
than expected after nearly not happening. Neat.
29 December 2001
[from
Toronto]
-Life's so much better now than a
year ago, it's
silly.
-2/1/2. Very pleased with 7 points. I'll bank that.
28 December 2001
[from
Toronto]
-We shall see.
Hm.
-Canada is such a
civilized country. Cold, but civilized. It's just the USA without
2/3rds of the
garbage. Or 2/3rds of the heat.
-This hotel isn't in the same scale of
magnitude of
quality as anything in Glasgow.
-Maybe random people are better than some we
know...
27 December 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Wow, the news from Buffalo
reports that I
may be ironmanning the first day at Worlds. Not really, but if Drew can't
escape the snow,
he may be incoming about an hour before first round. On top of money
concerns, this is
shaping up to be as weird as last year's Worlds.
-Rereading the Archive from
last year's
Worlds, I am now convinced that NOTHING could be that weird. That was one
bad
week.
-Just a couple more hours...
26 December 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Everybody thought I'd left
for Worlds
already! Not for another coupla days yet. Em's still gotta get back
& then we
fly out together on the 28th. Here's hoping it's better than last
year.
-Rousing games
of Pac-Man are always a good time while waiting for the bowling to begin.
Some people in
the past have said they've never seen me more animated than in front of a Pac-Man
machine.
These folks should (A) see Jake play Pac-Man & (B) see Jake & I come
back to whup up
on Freez & Gris in team-bet bowling. Now THAT's excitement!
-&
speaking of (A)
& (B), Marps is back, so I've seen almost everyone. Schneider, however,
remains
elusive.
25 December 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Merry Christmas to those who
want it wished
to them.
-I am still exhausted, & very very sore from yesterday's
goings-on. Crazy
luminarias.
-To respond to Lisha, all I can say is that it's possible that I
lumped her
feelings with Mesco's because she QUOTED Mesco to describe her feelings!!
But no, it wasn't
an intentional misinterp... when I said ABQ on the 23rd, I meant the people, not
the place.
So I think that it does accurately depict how Lisha was feeling in contrast
to me.
Regardless, it's incidental. This is why I wrote a book on the problem
of
interpretation. Ah well. No worries all around.
-I should really
call some
people, but I am both tired & somewhat cranky, so I doubt it'd do much good.
Sigh.
24 December 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Nearly 500 luminarias, all
placed on the
property. The triumph & difficulty was mostly the roof, which was only
lined on the
top since there's no gutter. But no one else did their roof, so I feel good
about that.
Now I'm exhausted. But I do love this tradition.
23 December 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Cud-chewing has its perils.
The way
it was prompted I still can't discern, but I've been kinda funked out today, for
the first time
since being home. & it certainly has nothing to do with the nagging
doubts that Lisha
& Mesco have been describing Albuquerque with lately. I love it here.
I like the
people here as much as I ever have. But there's other things that find a way
to nag.
I told my parents earlier this week, maybe only yesterday, that any morally
conscious
over-thinking person lives a life mired in guilt. Thoughts of guilt are the
constant
backdrop against which other thoughts are thrown for contrast. & while
this doesn't
normally get to me, it's the guilt combined with the various tortures of the past
that combine
for the most fun. This is coupled with just not feeling much of a Christmas
vibe anymore.
I love luminarias more than any tradition I can think of & I've had
plenty of energy
for that (I'm greatly looking forward to tomorrow), but there's something missing
in everything
else. I've actually been really annoyed by hearing Christmas carols. I
feel absent
& foggy & ethereal & rambling this into a great big long entry without
purpose.
I need to make some decisions that are going to preserve my sanity.
That's clear.
& I need to get away from environments where over-thinking is a way of
life.
Well, that last bit's an unreasonably unlikely thing, isn't it?
-Yeah,
just need to
focus on the bags of light. All will be well when tomorrow's spent doing
that.
-Just
now, trying to post these above entries, the internet shut itself down & had
to be restarted.
I almost took this as a sign that I shouldn't dump all this out here, but
it's what it's
there for, right? & I'm fine, just sorta lonely & thinking way the
heck too
much.
Introspection, My Worst
Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old
Frontiers",
by SWClayton.