Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.
~ Revelations 4:20

THE STARE'S NEST BY MY WINDOW
The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned,
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war;
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare;
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

~William Butler Yeats

Could this be me in a few years?

Hence, the academic grappling with his computer, ceaselessly correcting, reworking, and complexifying, turning the exercise into a kind of interminable psychoanalysis, memorizing everything in an effort to escape the final outcome, to delay the day of reckoning with death, and that other—fatal—moment of reckoning that is writing, by forming an endless feed-back loop with machine. ~ Jean Baudrillard

possibly...

waiting...

After a slightly impatient but cordially worded email to the UW's English graduate office regarding my application, I received a return missive that read
"You should hear from us within 2-3 weeks."

Urgh.

No one pretends that the works of Dumas are high literature, or that he stands up to comparison with Balzac, Hugo, Stendhal, or Flaubert. Nothing in his books encourages reflection, or forces recognition, or sounds significant depths. On the other hand, he had a genius for giving pleasure, and for ensnaring the attention of the reader. Once past the initial rumblings of his machinery, his books move into high gear and do not quit; to adapt a phrase applied to another writer, it is harder to stop reading his books than it is to start them.

~ Luc Sante, foreward to The Count of Monte Cristo

W.H. Auden

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast

"The Fall of Rome" appears in "W.H. Auden: Collected Poems," edited by Edward Mendelson. Modern Library. Copyright 2007 (and also 1976, 1991, 2007 by the Estate of W.H. Auden).

Facebook

Despite seeing numerous peers and profs laud Facebook, I did not hitch my online trailer to this communications phenomenon until months after I graduated from college. I like to think my subconcious was exercising wisdom far beyond my normal means, recognizing the timewasting possibilities of hyperlinking through the entire student body at the University of Washington. After I graduated, losing a part of my identity and social network (@ least until grad school), the voyeuristic pleasures of Facebook began to be revealed.

In all seriousness, I have finally edited my profile a bit, added a pic, added a few friends. But what interests me more than the networking aspect is how this online presence relies on a 'physical' vocabulary.

• poking - even the Facebook creators don't really seem to know what this function is for besides alerting someone else of your existence. Sort of like IMing someone with just a smiley - no explicit message except "I still exist, and I want you to know it." Still, it's interesting that a term so laden with the muscle memory of 'poking' people, a very physical intention, is used
• the Wall - immovable, impenetrable, a barrier, blocking the sightline - words that might be associated with this word so rich in metaphor. It's interesting that users essentially 'tag' each others wall with short, sometimes goofy/crude messages - graffiti for the artistically challenged - thus altering the word's meaning from that of an obstacle to a mutable, responsive pattern of question/response.

Another aspect I find interesting is how the photos are used. I understand having a photo on the profile page, but having one next to every single message can be a bit excessive sometimes. I wonder if the pictures next to the textual message are supposed to help create a sense of physical presence, to make the message resonate more like a spoken conversation. Words leaving my mind, flying through my frenetic fingers, disassembling and reassembling through wires, circuits, and sparks, before finally splatting against the intended Wall.