Gwyneth's personal blog

Tuesday, 21st July, cool and balmy air, luminous overcast

After breakfast and putting together the ful mesdames which will simmer now all day, I take my coffee out to the shabby peace of our patio and pretend I'm on holiday, Kastraki beach 2005 wd do, or Thoard or Bonnieux last summer. Seven drunks in a van, coming back from Lords howling incoherently down the phone, evervescent with the cunning way Freddie conspired to rob England, for once of a triumphant snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory, reminded me yesterday of Kastraki, and the Australian Internet bar in Naxos town... The air is soft, I have a good book (it's Accelerando), maybe I just went swimming in the Aegean, maybe not, but never mind, I have a painted lady for company, a female she's sitting on the worn wood (just like in the picture), fearless and calm, even when I get close to her. Accelerando is a this is where I came in experience (like deja vu only not so exciting as it's voluntary). Exactly like reading Neuromancer for the first time, or Bruce Sterling when I first met him. The humane geek, hip to the futuristic edge of things, and, sadly for me, terrified of women. Did I ever mention, all the times I've praised the cyberpunks, that little problem? Me, not a deracinated cyberbabe, not a Mom or a vagina dentata. Therefore me not possible! Ah, well, me and the butterfly, same problem maybe. But don't you see, the world already is packed with intelligent information? Looking back at us, from every angle? Don't you see, we don't need Second Nature, reinventing the wheel, we only need to connect?

I wish I could stay outdoors, getting my brain tweaked into pleasurable attention, but I have to go to work. Indexing, indexing, indexing, what made me remember this as an enjoyable task? Maybe the volume was slimmer, and maybe I was working in Old Word, a decade ago, instead of struggling with a pdf ripped back into Word 2007, which I don't like. Or else it's because this so-called book of essays is more like a memoir, and that gets boring after several close examinations. Full of things I'm finished with.