A letter to the big house - 15 Megs of Fame: a journal

Hi. Sorry I haven't written back before now. I got your letter from last June and around Christmastime, and didn't know if I should write back or not. I guess I just sat on them, and you know how it is, life happens, you don't remember to do things or put it off, not to mention I've had a generally low mood the last several months (okay, last several years (well, okay, since the late eighties), but I'm sure you knew anyway) and haven't really wanted to do much of anything except crawl under a rock and die.

Not to mention (and this may sound silly), but I was slightly offended that you said you'd be able to see me more because it was only a half hour rather than an hour to get to Pearland from Sugarland. (Yeah, so I'm petty. [frown])

Today I thought about it and decided I ought to write back while I'm at work, though; I actually don't have a word processor installed on this computer, so I'm marking it up in a text editor with HTML to do the text formatting. Works pretty well, doesn't it? I almost think I could write a word processor that just outputs HTML and you could print it using a web browser, or a pluggable browser engine like Internet Explorer has.

(Anyway, you know that my handwriting is illegible, anyway, so this needs to be typewritten.)

Anyway, I didn't know if I should write back or not because we're such different people now. (I would say because I think that you are, given what's happened and how distant we'd become, but everyone changes, no one can really say, "I'm still the same and everyone else has changed," after all.) I just think about some of the people you fell in with that always seemed a little... shady is the word I'm looking for, I guess. I didn't know if I wanted to invite that into my life, it's such a mess already, anyway.

I've been suffering from fairly severe depression, so I haven't been up to a whole lot. Just recently I got on a regimen of antidepressants (Remeron and Wellbutrin) to counteract it, and it's having mixed success. I try to keep life simple to stem any relapses into deep depression.

Anyway, I'm answering this at work because it's slow now, and I try to use this time at work while there isn't much to do to actually get small things accomplished, and I thought I should write you back. I feel pretty badly that I haven't answered up until now, and so I wanted to take this opportunity to get back in touch with you.

You said in your letter that you came to see me during your daughter's birthday party at the park in June, 1998, I assume from the context and date of the letter. Yes, I was probably at work. I was working for a translation company; I got into working in the translation industry through most of '97 and '98, and started a company with somebody to do that in late '98. The first week of '99 I quit the job, though, because I just couldn't deal with the stress anymore. The stress wasn't that great, I was just very fragile then. I wasn't up to dealing with things, and the fact that the foreign oil exploration industry was slow then and most of our clients were in the energy industry didn't make for much income coming in. So... I gave up. (Not like that's the first time I ever gave up, 'eh?)

Your daughter sounds pretty. You know I've always liked red hair with green or hazel eyes, but red and blue eyes sounds quite fetching as well. Where is her mother? Are you married? (You never have said, so I have wondered.)

Anyway, what am I doing right now? I'm doing software support for this company that has the support contract for a professional income tax electronic filing product, so of course, this is a seasonal job (during tax season). The hours keep getting cut back though, because the season is winding down, so I need to be looking around for a new job, but I haven't been quite up to it.

Also, I'm doing some graphics and web work on the side. I've improved significantly, I think (and some people have told me I have, too), because I actually keep few web sites (I've been thinking about doing a 'zine, too), so I practice a bit for a change, and I have learned some graphic design, too, through trial, error and blatant, outright copying and theft. [grin] I am considering doing a little bit more learning about server-side coding (dust off my Perl programming, and learn more PHP and SQL databases) to make it my main line of work (either for someone, or seek out my own clients).

(Know somebody who needs a website? [grin] And yes, you were right, I did want to do something evil to that place I was doing web work for back in... wow, late '95. It was that long ago. Time flies, huh? But really, it was a screw-job all the way around. I'm glad I got out of there, even today.)

Rest and relaxation? What are those? I guess if you call unwinding and vegetation R&R, then I play first-person shooter games (I still adore the original Quake) and watch TV ("The X-Files," "Star Trek: Voyager," "Felicity," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," that sort of thing). Nothing exciting. Plus I do my websites, and I chat with some folks that I met over the last year, mostly in a depression chat environment, but some because of my websites. (I don't really want to talk about that place, because apart from the few people I met that still stick with me, the whole experience was pretty negative.)

You also asked if I play roleplaying games anymore. No, not really. I'm not into them. I can't even imagine sinking that much time into RPGs anymore, because that's just not who I am anymore. They were good when we were kids and that's what we did for fun, but I can't imagine doing that again.

Now, if I get back into roleplaying, it'll be something like EverQuest; in case you don't know, it's a 3D game environment where thousands of players can get together to play live. It's instant, nobody has to gamemaster, you don't have to go all the way to somebody's house to play... it's just more ideal to me. (Some people call it "EverCrack" because it's so addicting.)

Actually, I'd love to make a game like that, but I know that I won't. I'm too far behind the curve in programming, and I don't know anybody to develop the graphics, maps, content, etc. I don't know if I'll ever even have the energy or desire to catch up again. It'd be a lot of fun, though.

You asked me what I think about computers. I like the speed; Gillian (my 400 MHz Pentium II) is certainly a lot peppier than the old PCs or Commodores I used to use. It's hard to believe that I'm using a machine that has 6144 times the physical memory of that old Commodore 64, and runs, equivalently, anywhere from 1000-2000 times faster for most operations.

Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth it though. Remember GEOS for the Commodore 64? It was a pretty functional GUI with WYSIWYG editing and drawing programs. Not to mention that you could get pretty much whatever you wanted back then, and it ran and was actually functional on those little machines. Now everything has the plumbing so overtaken that you need 128 megs just to sit down at the machine and make it functional. It's ridiculous.

And yes, I remember BBSes back then. We used to communicate with lots of people back then, and imagine this, they were actually close enough to get together with. I remember sitting in my bedroom hacking code into The Keep BBS base (or just changing the base entirely) and sharing it around, too, or C*Net-128 when we outgrew that... I felt like a member of a community back then, instead of just an anonymous "surfer." No wonder they think internet use has such an impact on self-esteem.

What's weird, though, is that I feel like I have a real tie to the 'net. I've been doing it since late '88. It seems more natural to me. Maybe it's just because BBSing is so far removed from my experience now.

Then again, there are BBSes on the net, although they're often web-based. They're just not as convenient, though. That's a pull technology - I have to go there, I have to read, I have to answer messages through my own effort. It's not a push technology, like a mailing list that is automatically sent to me, or notifies me of changes and I can select to look at the changes or not at my leisure. People are lazier now, we're more used to the computer doing more work for us.

Maybe that's the big change in technology. The computer does more work for us, and we can't go back. Sort of like having a secretary makes people not able to go back - they remember how to do things for themselves, it's just easier to delegate.

And I'm with you on the fact that nobody uses snailmail. I prefer email. Email is so much faster. It's so much more casual, because I write it and then the hard work is over. I hit send, and it drops in my outgoing mail queue. In anywhere from 5-10 minutes, it'll get flushed automatically, or I can hit a button to check my mail and it'll connect to my SMTP server as an after thought and ship the message out then. It's convenient.

I've noticed an insidious change, though - I've gotten into using ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger a lot. I would rather get an ICQ message half the time, than an email message. Email requires me to think about an answer. ICQ is immediate. It's in-your-face. I am down to mass-answering email once a week because it's not as convenient.

Where do I get in line to get the direct neural interface?

You wondered in your first letter what I thought would happen for Y2K. Obviously, nothing happened on Y2K. I always figured it was overblown, but I was cautious. Not to the point of storing up food and building a bunker, but...

Now mind you, if nobody had done anything to prepare, it'd have been an unmitigated disaster. The disaster was averted because people were made aware of the danger and made the system changes that were really important.

Anyway, probably 80% of the code dealing with dates really only deal with accounting issues. So what?

This didn't stop me from sitting, waiting for the new year with a flashlight in my hand in case the power went out, though. What happened there? Did they institute anything in case of failures?

Also, you asked if I was opposed to reading fiction. I don't know that I was ever opposed, I just had so much nonfiction to read that I couldn't justify reading fiction.

Of course, back then I was having a problem with short attention span and variable mood, too, so I wasn't getting all the reading done that I really thought I should be. Thus, I couldn't read any fiction, I'd just feel guilty.

I still haven't read it. I think age brings a little different perspective, though - I realize now I can't know everything. I can be a generalist, though - I can know enough that I can learn the rest readily, because I have a broad experience and background to draw upon, you know?

So I am trying to get more reading done, without much effect. Mostly, when I want to know about something, I tend to just research it obsessively in the moment. I may even go back to college, although I sometimes doubt it. It's a day-to-day thing, and I can't put together the commitment to actually do something that long that is entirely optional, because I know I'll hang in there a few weeks at most, and then my attention will wander or I'll have a mood slump, or something. If I can get my dosage on Remeron increased, and quit sleeping my life away maybe that will change. (Remeron is a very potent somulant, and I was prescribed Wellbutrin to counteract the effect during the day because it's supposed to be a stimulant, but it's not having enough effect towards waking me up.)

I've had dreams about the old house on rare occasion, too. Isn't that weird how we do those things? Remember places like that? Dreams about the past seem to have that weird "airbrushed" sense to them like they do in the media, too, which is strange to me (but I figured they got it from somewhere).

But yes, Pearland is changing, and yes, like you wrote, only change is constant ("He knows changes aren't permanent/But change is" - "Tom Sawyer", Rush). It's growing into quite the yuppie bedroom community. I've got to get out of here.

I've thought about moving. Just up and moving, getting out of here. I don't know that I will; Houston is home, for better or for worse. I'm not excited about the prospect of being here the rest of my life, but at the same time, I'm not big on the idea of going somewhere else, because of course we fear the unknown. Uncertainty and failure looms large. I'm not excited about that. I figure in time I'll get sick of it here and something will tick me off enough to move away.

Not much is going on here. I'm just fighting my own mind for control, and trying to stay afloat and learn this and that. There are a few things going on, like I met a woman from the northeast a few months ago, but it's a little rocky, and I caused a slight problem during my recent medication change, so I don't know if that will hash out. Basically, life is life, and nothing exciting with me.

Anyway, what's going on with you? I hate to ask this, but... what happened that you're in this time? My grandmother said that your parents said it was something drug-related, but didn't have any details. (I guess it's blunt to ask, but I just wondered, you know?)

Yes, I remember . I'm glad things are working out for him. Texas City? I haven't been down there since I almost drowned there. [wistful smile]

I've not heard from anybody in a long time - I just cloistered away, I guess. I even used to hear from people in BBSing from time to time, but I never felt terribly friendly, so I didn't prolong things. I guess I just got to the point where I didn't want much to do with anybody.

So what do you do to pass the time? Read? Play chess (you asked if I played much, so I figured you must have been playing some)? Write?

You invented a card game, huh? Is it a collectable card game? Those things make a fortune. I had an idea for one a while back, based off (get this) conspiracy theories. Your goal was similar to the Illuminati card game, to take over the world, except instead of a fixed, sit-down card game it was a collectible card game like "Magic: The Gathering." I don't know if the idea would have taken off, but I forgot most of the details of it, so I guess it's moot. (Why does a patent have to cost thousands of dollars? Can't you patent it yourself?)

Let me know what's going on. I'll try to be better about answering mail. Like I said, I just suck at most everything these days.

Talk to you soon,
Mike