Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Voids

I'm reading Anne Tyler's new novel on my new Kindle. She's so gentle to read. There's never any point or any mad adrenaline pumped page turning. I think she may even officially be chick lit, but then I eat quiche and like it.

To the point where I've gotten, the story describes a post-middle aged man who's out of work and just moved to smaller digs. I can relate. Just at the point of arrival, his new small apartment is invaded, but he can't remember a thing about what happened. Apparently, there was lots of blood and shit, but it's all pretty unmentionable. It's driving him mad to get at some memory of what happened, but as he was hit on the head, there's no chance he's going to succeed. I'm guessing.

Well, I landed in the hospital just after moving, and now I'm in an insurance black hole, since the out-of-network stuff won't be paid, but everyone's being really helpful as I plod my way out of the hole. They must be scared of Obama or something. Anyhow, it's not like I'm going to die over it; only lab tests. But it's kind of funny that I would have had to both know the limits of my coverage and drive long distance to be assured of coverage. The funny part is that it might be driving long distances which generated the clot in my legs which threw a clot to my lungs, which landed me in the hospital on Christmas eve.

I know you don't need to know all that, and there's no memory lapse involved. Just a kind of friends and family gap right where you most want it to be full. The protagonist in the novel has friends and family which don't seem to care for him that much, but you get the feeling it's because they never felt he cared for them. There's a lot of nice playing on words, much more gentle than the sort I indulge. And I feel loved, which does however, accentuate the void a bit.

I read some last night in a sort of strange donut hole in my sleep. I'd gone to bed way too early, as often happens after spending the day, say, dealing with the adrenaline rushing roller-coaster of merry-go-round calling to health insurance companies. It can give you a really bad headache.

Each of my two companies has a "Guest Coverage" office, and I now have two primary care physicians; one for Rochester which is my home territory because that's where I used to live and where I'm COBRA'd in (thank God) and one for Buffalo where I actually live, and they each have rules to limit their liability, and a lot of the time each phone-stop helpfully suggests that you need to call someone else, and these calling chains can take you right back to where you started, which would be funny if there weren't so much money involved.

Anyhow, I still feel cared for, and I'm not angry. It's just nerve wracking, maybe like playing poker with a lot in the game.

So I'm wide awake after midnight, and so I read about a void which is pretty much like the void in my sleep. And then, likely because of the punctuation mark of being awake in my sleep's middle, I am semi-dreaming all night about foreground/context matters, frames for art-objects, frames as craft and not art, and then the whole context which makes objects possible.

Naturally, I can't recover the clarity I felt in my semi-dream state. But I'm pretty sure it had something to do with how many words are required to create a context, and how few to define an object, once the context is established.

I write lots and lots of words, and they aren't always very easy to read. I know. And I always write as if I have a point, and trust me I really really do. But on the other hand, maybe what I've got is this void. This empty spot right in the middle where the point should be. That thing I can't find the words for, nor pin down. Maybe there really isn't any difference.

I'm just trying to establish myself, after all, by pinning my words to other words already more trued. The arrangements of the Internet make this really easy to do with hyperlinks which are almost like citations. You try to build this chain of trust which is the very opposite of what most people seem to be trying to do on the Internet.

Most people seem to be desperately trying to "go viral". They want to build a chain of interconnections in a kind of twitterish you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours and we'll build a big ponzi scheme of love to be sure that we have a chance to get the attention of the world.

I'm involved in a "startup" company which is determined never to be a startup company. We are working to insinuate ourselves, and prove ourselves to such a point that we'll have already existed for just about forever by the time you're even aware of us.

I also want my writing here to stand up to careful scrutiny. But it is hard to find a voice at about the age when you're losing your literal one. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying, it's really hard is all.

I'm not looking for a pass, nor trying to make excuses. I know I have to find some way to be worth reading if I have a point to make. So, I'm doing that thing you're supposed to do, which is practice practice practice.

Thanks for indulging me.

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