Microserfs (19 page)

Bug's right. We are all starting to unravel. Or sprout. Or whatever. I remember back in grade school, VCR documentaries on embryology, and the way all mammals look the same up until a certain point in their embryological development, and then they start to differentiate and become what they're going to become. I think we're at that point now.

My sense of time perception has gone all screwy. Sundays always do that to me. One day is so much like every other day here, and yet every day is somehow different. I designed a little program that I click into every time I get an interruption - like a phone call or someone asks me a question - or I have to change a tape in my Walkman. My average time between interruptions is 12.5 minutes. Perhaps this is part of my time schism.

I mentioned these interruptions to Todd who said, "I'm still doing 18-hour days like up at Microsoft, except instead of doing just one thing, I'm doing a hundred different things - my job is so much better. More diversity. It's the diversity of interruptions . . . time becomes 'initiative driven' as opposed to passive."

He then added that in Christian eschatology ("the study of the Last Things") it is always made very clear that time and the world both end simultaneously, that there is no real difference between the two.

Then he panicked, worrying that he was doomed to turn into his parents, and roared off to the gym. He's doing upper body today. He alternates upper and lower body. He never sleeps. That's how he names his days: Upperbodyday; Lowerbodyday; Absday; Latsday . . . Sometimes I admire his single-minded drive to achieve muscular perfection, and sometimes I think he's a freak.

I read about fishermen off the Gulf Coast whose net, dragging the ocean floor, snagged a sunken galleon, and when the net was raised, a shower of coins fell on the ship's deck. Talk about a story to appeal to us here in the Valley!

Sent out my Christmas cards today - I went to McDonald's and got a stack of "JOIN THE FAMILY" job application forms and filled them out for everybody. The only remotely personal question the form asks is: Sports? Activities?

Here's what I wrote for everybody: "Abe/Susan/Bug/Michael/etc . . . greatly enjoys repetitive tasks."

Geek party night: it's kind of like if we were in Hollywood and going to

an "industry party." That guy Susan met from General Magic had a party up at his place in the Los Altos Hills. All day at the office Susan and Karla talked about what they're going to . . . wear. It was really un-Karla, but I'm glad she's getting into her body and taking pride in it.

Susan's on the prowl, so she wants to look sexy, techie, "fun," and serious all at once. Good luck. She complains to Karla that "I've got period boobs . . . they feel like they're going to go on a lactating spree momentarily." She's so tell-it-like-it-is, but Susan . .

Karla said, "Well, that could work to your advantage if you wear that Betsy Johnson dress."

"Excellent idea!" Susan was motivated.

At geek parties, you can sort corporate drones from start-up drones by dress and conversation. Karla and I stood next to two guys who work on the Newton project at Apple. They talked with unflagging enthusiasm about frequent flyer miles for about 45 minutes. They had a purchasable Valley hip. One guy had the mandatory LA Eyeworks glasses and a nutty orange vest worn over baggy jeans. The other guy had Armani glasses and a full Calvin Klein ensemble, but not a matching ensemble, mind you - "thrown together" in "that expensive way." You can't help but be conscious here of how much everything costs, and where it comes from.

Newton Guy One: I'm trying to make United Premiere Executive 100K. Are you 100K yet?

NG 2: Oh, yeah, right after Hanover this fall. And you'll never believe this - I was late for a flight the other day, and when the woman at the United counter pulled up my record, I looked at the monitor and my name was surrounded by DOLLAR SIGNS. How subtextual.

NG 1: Wow, great! (Obviously genuinely impressed) I think I might make it if they let me fly United to Japan the next two times. Fucking Apple Travel. I now have frequent flyer miles on Alitalia, Northwest, JAL, Lufthansa, USAir, Continental, American, and British Air. I wish we flew Virgin Air . . . that would be the coolest.

NG 2: I like the toiletries case from British Air.

NG 1: They used to be cooler . . . all the stuff used to be from the Body Shop. But Virgin Air rules because you get your own video game monitor and you can play SEGA Games with other passengers.

NG 2: All over the plane? Or just business class?

NG 1: I don't know. Business class only, I think. I guess it would be cooler if you could play with the 13-year old kids back in coach . . . SEGA should send group testers on flights and do market research that way! (Titters.)

Karla and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes, but were impressed. APPLE! NEWTON! JAL FIRST CLASS! I don't have frequent flyer miles on any airline.

Loser.

Anatole's Lexus has a vertical slot in its dashboard. It's a coffee cup holder that pops out and does this flip-flip-flip origami thing - whoosh-whoosh-whoosh - and becomes horizontal.

Karla and I went out around sunset and had coffees and sat in the car. This was the highlight of the day, so you can imagine how dull the day was.

Stocking stuffers: I bought these red "panic buttons" at Weird Stuff, the computer surplus store across from Fry's on Kern Street in Sunnyvale. It's a fake IBM button with adhesive tape on the back that you're supposed to tape on to your board and push whenever you're feeling "wacky."

I felt really sad for the panic buttons, because panic seems like such an outdated, corny reaction to all of the change in the world. I mean if you have to be negative, there's a reasonable enough menu of options available - disengagement - atomization - torpor - but panic? Corrrrrrny.

I mentioned to Abe about my lessons in shiatsu and the weird relationship people in tech firms can have with their bodies. He replied:

I know what you mean about bodeis. At Microsoft you pretend bodies dont' exist . . . BRAINS are what matter. You're right, at Microsoft bodies get down played to near invisibilty with unsensual Tommy Hilfiger geekwear, or are genericized with items form the GAP so that employees morph themelfves into those international symbols for MAN and WOMAN you see at airports.

Susan got a job offer from General Magic - that guy she chatted up at the Halloween party recommended her - and Todd got a job offer from Spectrum HoloByte. At first I couldn't imagine why - then he told us that

someone at the gym must have recommended him. It's occupational cannibalism here. Both offers are tempting. But Susan's got too much money stoked into the Oop! fire to leave, and Todd's simply too into it. But it's nice to know that if Oop! flushes the toilet, there's a Plan B ready.

Oop! isn't about work. It's about all of us staying together.

We ate lunch in Chinatown up in SF only today, and there were these paper birds strung from the ceiling and this little kid who wanted to touch the birds and his father lifted him up to touch them. I didn't realize, but I was staring at the whole thing the whole time, and zoned out of the conversation, and then I realized Karla was watching me.

Time time time. It's such a current subject. It's like money - if you don't have it, you think about it too much.

Karla's been thinking about time, too. Tonight during shiatsu training, with me flat on my stomach, my back and sides being poked and pummeled, her voice, disconnected from her body, informed me that in general, "One's perception of time's flow is directly linked to the number of connections one has to the outer world. Technology increases the number of connections, thus it alters the perception of having 'experienced' time.

"It's a bell-curve relationship. There's actually an optimum point at which the amount of technology one owns extends the amount of time one perceives or experiences.

"It's as if your brain holds a tiny, cashew-shaped thalamus going tick-tick-tick while it meters out your time dosage for you. There's a technological equilibrium point, after which, it's all downhill."

Abe e-mailed a response to my time stuff:

Once you've used your brain flat-out, you can't go into the SLOW mode. You can't drive an Infinite J-30 and then get downgraded to an Daewoo. Brains don't work that way.

This morning Dad was singing "Road to Nowhere." Michael is reprogramming my father. I have to figure out a way of dealing with this.

Whenever Anatole gets too European and insufferable - complaining too much, basically - we say to him, "Hey, Anatole, your turtleneck's showing." He doesn't get this particular joke. "But I am not wearing a turtleneck . . ."

Anatole told us this really great thing, how at Apple they used to have a thing called RumorMonger that allowed employees to anonymously input up to one hundred ASCII characters worth of gossip into the system. So Todd hacked together a quick in-house version for our network, called Rumor-Meister. It got way out of control almost immediately:

1) SUSAN SHOPS AT TARGET BUT PUTS HER STUFF IN NORDSTROM BAGS

2) DANIEL SELLS HIS USED BOXERS VIA MAIL ORDER . . . $5.00 PER DAY OF WEAR

3) BUG SWEATS TO THE OLDIES

4) DAN . . . THOSE DOCKERS . . . HIP!

5) TODD HAS SAGGY NIPPLES FROM TOO MUCH BODY BUILDING THEY'RE CALLED 'BITCH TITS'

5) TODD WEARZ DEPENDS WHEN HE BENCH PRESSES BECUZ UTHERWIZE HE'LL EVACUATE HIS BOWELS ON THE BENCH

7) KARLA PAID TO SEE "THE BODY GUARD"

8) BUG LAUGHS AT GARFIELD CARTOONS

9) KARLA CAN'T ACCESSORIZE

10) SUSAN HAS COMBINATION SKIN

11) TODD SMOKES 'MORE' CIGARETTES

12) I CAN HEAR KARLA'S COLOSTOMY BAG SLOSHING

13) ETHAN'S FERRARI IS A KIT CAR

14) ETHAN BUYS TIRES AT SEARS

15) BUG LOVES BARNEY

16) KARLA THINKS SHE'S A SUMMER BUT SHE'S REALLY A FALL

17) BUG HAS 2 RAFFI CASSETTES

18) DAN HAS A YANNI CD IN HIS CAR

19) ETHAN'S VISA LIMIT IS $3,000

20) SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY

21) DAN: LISTERINE KILLS GERMS THAT CAN CAUSE BAD BREATH

22) DAN STILL LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER

23) BUG SHOPS AT CHESS KING

24) MICHAEL'S SHIRT SMELL LIKE GERBIL PEE

Todd quickly removed the program from the system.

Ethan had a time crisis. "I look at my Daytimer and see: CES in January, COMDEX in May, Tim's wedding in July, etc., and I realize the whole year is over before it's even begun. What's the point of it all? It's all of it so predictable."

Mom won a swim meet this afternoon, so we dug out the nickels from under the seat cushions and went out for a low-fat dinner to celebrate. She's so fit these days.

I was driving down from the 280, down Peter Coutts Road, up by Systemix, Wall Data, IBM, Hewlett Packard, and the Wall Street Journal printing plant - up where Dad used to work before he was rendered obsolete - and who should I see taking a stroll together but Dad and Michael! They were lost in discussion, their arms donnishly held behind their backs.

I pulled the car into a side street and ran out to join them. Upon hearing me yell their names, they turned around, absentmindedly interrupted, utterly unfazed at seeing me. I asked what they were doing and Dad said, "Oh, you know - just taking a stroll past the old hunting grounds" (IBM).

Cars hummed by. A tech firm's lawn sprinkler spritzed. I didn't know what to say, surrounded by all these blank buildings with glassed-out windows, these buildings where they make the machines that make the machines that make the machines.

I began walking up the hill with them and shortly we were in front of IBM. I felt humiliated for my father, because surely there'd be employees behind the reflecto windows saying, "Oh look, it's Mr. Underhill stalking us. He must have really lost it."

But Dad seemed unfazed. I said, "Dad, how can you even look at those people?"

He replied, "You know, Daniel, I have noticed that people are generally quite thrilled to have change enter their lives - disasters are weathered by people with a sturdiness that is often unlike their day-to-day personality."

Michael piped in, "Just think of the Mississippi River floods. All those people having barbecues up on their roofs, waving to the CNN helicopters - having a grand old time."

"Precisely," said Dad. "I've realized that people most dread the thought of actually initiating change in their lives and we old people are obviously the worst. It's hard coping with chaos and diversity. We old folks mistake the current deluge of information, diversity, and chaos as the 'End of History.' But maybe it's actually the Beginning."

This sounded like Michael-style words coming out of my father's mouth. Brainwashed!

He continued. "Old people have more or less dropped out of the process of creating old-fashioned-style history. We've been pushed to the side, and nobody's pointed out to us what we, the newly obsolete humans, are supposed to do."

"The only thing that is immune to change is our desire for meaning," added Michael, to my overweening annoyance.

We scurried across the street during a lull in the Lexuses, and began walking down the hill. "Don't ask me to explain this eight-jobs-in-a-lifetime reality we now inhabit. I could barely deal with the one-job-in-a-lifetime world," Dad said.

The sun was golden - birds swung in the sky. Cars purred at a stoplight. Dad looked so relaxed and happy. "I always assumed that history was created by think tanks, the DOE and the RAND Corporation of Santa Monica, California. I assumed that history was something that happened to other people - out there. I never thought history was something my kid built in the basement. It's a shock."