Microserfs (26 page)

Todd pointed out something I thought was really true. He said that when future archaeologists dig up the remains of California, they're going to find all of these gyms and all of this scary-looking gym equipment, and they're going to assume that we were a culture obsessed with torture.

Went for late coffee at the Posh Bagel on Main Street in Los Altos. The white lights in the trees were so pretty. Human beings can't be all that bad.

Dusty is furious with Todd. She discovered a collection of cans of aerosol "religious sprays" he had hidden in his cupboard - like "Aerosol Stigmata" and "Santa Barbara in a Can." His mom sends them to him from Port Angeles. She buys them from a Catholic mail-order house in Philadelphia. It's so weird, but these sprays really exist.

Todd sulked: "She threw them out like time-expired antibiotics."

In order to foster a less combative working environment, Michael and I are trying to think of the most apolitical environment possible. We finally hit upon Star Trek as a zero-politics zone. So I introduced the notion of TrekPolitiks to the office.

Susan said, "Ever notice how, like, nobody ever goes shopping on Star Trek? They're a totally post-money society. If they want a banana they simply photocopy one on the replicator. Substitute Malaysia or Mexico for the replicator, and make Palo Alto the Bridge, and bingo: RIGHT NOW = STAR TREK."

It's true.

If you think about it.

I added, "Ever notice how they never have to report to anybody on Star Trek? No suits zoom in from Star Fleet Corporate and hold them fiscally responsible for frying a dilithium crystal doing doughnuts in the Delta Quadrant. Or Star Fleet Marketing, for that matter." (Pointed glares at Ethan.)

Karla likes the notion of TrekPolitiks. "Left vs. right is obsolete. Politics is, in the end, about biology, information, diversification, numbers, numbers, and numbers - all candy coated with charisma and guns."

Karla like myself is of the new apolitical pick-and-choose style of citizen. I think politics is soon going to resemble a J. Crew catalogue more than some 1776 ideal. If somebody wants to run for office, they had better be able to explain why they want to run for office. Wanting to be a candidate seems, in itself, reason for exclusion.

Dusty said, "Thomas Jefferson never anticipated Victoria's Secret catalogues and media-induced social atomization. Just think - we're rapidly approaching a world composed entirely of jail and shopping." She paused to consider this, said, "Grotacious!" then she went for a jog.

Dad had his second callback from Delta.

Karla apparently noticed my breathing the other day when I was carrying the trash cans to the end of the driveway. She has decided I should start going to the gym. "You have to add more megs to your hard drive. I'm going, too." She's right - we both need meat on us - excuse me - we both need more crystal lattice added on to our drives.

Every time I look at Karla, she changes and changes, and now I realize other men are looking at her and this makes me have to look at myself, and what I see is sort of scrawny. Suddenly Karla can date higher on the geek food chain than me if she wants to - she can date all the Phils-from-Apples of this world - she has entered the realms of buffness and cleft chins. I care about being with her too much to lose her to a . . . Phil unit. To lose her ever, to anyone. I can't imagine losing her. I must make myself stronger. I must build a better me. I must become the Bionic Man.

It turns out that if you tape TV shows that are close-captioned, you CAN have English language subtitles. Our entertainment universe has multiplied itself!

Susan told us today what our characters and powers would be if we were on Star Trek:

Michael:

Disembodied neocortex afloat inside a tank of nutrient-bearing solution; has ability to see back and forth in time; communicates via LEDs and a synchronized swim team of hybridized dolphins living in a satellite-linked inlet on the Goa Coast.

Todd:

Repairer of broken machines; has tools instead of fingers; regulation hunk required by TV network to stimulate sales of tie-in merchandise; able to telepathically determine sexual coefficient of alien beings; skin can turn to gold by beaming himself to the planet TanFastic.

Karla:

Crew Biologist; able to camouflage feeling with scientific theories; superior intelligence allows for dominance over all males or spore-bearing entities.

Me:

Token earthling; prey to foibles and pratfalls of all humanity (thanks Susan).

Bug:

Feathered creature picked up in sympathy from a collapsing Throm Nebula; most likely to say uncontrolled, angry things about fellow cast and crew members to Entertainment Tonight years after the series ends up in syndication . . . lack of Screen Actors Guild residuals plus an addiction to cosmetic surgery will provide an impetus.

Susan herself:

Priestess of the Right Lobe; erotic female interest demanded by TV networks; will devour males if overly excited; designs castles while sleepwalking; flawless plastic skin; thighs conceal bevatron guns.

Dusty:

Bionic creature from a destroyed Valley planet; disciplinarian; feeds on X rays; arms contain snakes that will fight her wars.

Ethan:

Bearer of the Dark Force; can transmute feces into uranium; owns hyperspace cruiser that can vanish and reappear at any moment across time, space, and money.

Abe:

Wise hermit cast adrift on asteroid for thousands of years; has developed odd code languages for everyday actions; lonely but not bitter; his heart is cryogenically frozen, and he must search the universe pursuing the Thawer.

Went to the gym for the first time today and my body feels like an East German Trabant car running on linseed oil crashing into a stack of burning televisions. The pain!

Susan's going psycho over an asthmatic Detroit car artist named Emmett who Michael brought in to do drawings and storyboards. ("We run a very disciplined little software shop," says Ethan. "Detroit really knows how to crack the whip!")

I think it would be a very scary thing at this point in Susan's sexual radicalization to be the subject of her infatuation. Good luck, Emmett.

Oh - Emmett's last name is - Couch - isn't that a hoot! And his big personal beef is Japanese animation. He says that SEGA and Nintendo are responsible for the "subtle but massive Hello-Kittification of North American animation. You can kiss our Hanna-Barbera heritage good-bye." How can anybody take this so seriously?

Emmett has 4,000 manga comics from Japan. They're so violent and dirty! The characters all look as if they're saying unbelievably important things - talking to God and the Wizard of the Universe - but when you translate them, all they're really doing is making belching noises. Susan has discovered in these manga a rich source of fashion ideas.

The more we realize our Lenin jokes rankle Todd, the more the Lenin jokes grow out of control. Even Mom got into the act and made "Lenin's Face" cookies, dropping them into the office on her way to work. We told Todd to close his eyes and touch them and describe their texture - "kind of leathery - kind of dry - kind of . . . chewy - kind of like . . ." (opens his eyes).

Ethan: "An embalmed syphilitic tyrant?"

"You assholes! Oh, sorry, Mrs. Underwood."

I learned a new expression today: "protein window." Todd told it to me.

Apparently, after you bodybuild, you have a two-hour time window in which your body can suck up amino acids. This is your protein window. I was talking to him and he said, "Man, I'd like to talk some more, but my protein window is closing," and he ran off to the kitchen and ate a chicken. What a decade this is.

I forgot to eat while my protein window was open. Maybe that's why I'm in pain.

Abe mail:

In the future all planets will have roman numerals after their names and have one or two sylable names that sound like Dupont carpet material from 1966 . . . Norlon IV . . . Erthrea IK . . . Gil II

Bug has joined a "Lego Bobsledding Team" and has plummeted to a new nadir of Nerddom. It's over in Berkeley - they use Mattel Hot Wheels tracks, bet with Monopoly money, have megaphones and everything. Lego trophies, too.

Todd called me "decadent" today - this, after he discussed protein windows! I couldn't believe it. He said I was decadent because I was eating Lucky Charms. He said they were "symptomatic of a culture in decline - sucrose hysteria, you know."

I said, "But Todd, Lucky Charms were invented during the Johnson Administration. Society couldn't have been more anti-decline than it was then. Guns and butter . . . I can't believe I'm even talking to you seriously about this. This is silly beyond belief."

Anyway, that was the seed notion. Karla and I wrote a big list of "decadent cereals" on the office dry-erase wall:

CAP'N CRUNCH:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

a) Colonialist exploiter pursues naive Crunchberry cultures to plunder. b) Drunkenness, torture, and debauchery implicit in long ocean cruises.

SUGAR FROSTED FLAKES: Reason this cereal is decadent:

Silky throated military-industrial complex spokestoad "Tony the Tiger" exploits the need of the undereducated underclass for a paternalistic, Reagan-like figure. A cautionary tale of the perils of not indoctrinating at the crèche level.

TRIX:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Well-meaning rabbit, "Trix," kept in continual state of malnutrition/subservience by dominant children of the parasitic bourgeoisie. "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids" can only be construed as a call to class warfare.

LUCKY CHARMS;

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Man with no known adult friends lures children into forest for purpose of nutritional (ideological) seduction. Sprightly twinkle motif on packaging (putatively an allusion to "flavor") are, in fact, metaphors for soul-deadening sucrose.

RICE KRISPIES:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Snap, Krackle, and Pop thinly veiled emblems for the Trilateral Commission.

COCOA PUFFS:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

"I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs," the demented cackle of Sonny the Cocoa Puffs bird/spokesmuppet, is resonant with the insanity inherent in the needless enslavement of the proletariat.

COUNT CHOCULA - FRANKENBERRY: Reason this cereal is not decadent:

Gay relationship offers an excellent role model for this new era of diversity. Witty vampire motif plays on never-ending struggle of the oppressed to topple the ruling classes.

On the same theme, from Abe:

I have settled up on the calorie delivery system of choice: Stouffer's home sytle fish fillet with macaroni and chees. Microvaves in six minutes; 430 caloreis. Eat two of them and you don't have to think of food for 5 hours. Beverage: Tang.

Do you like the Airbus R300?

Dad got the Delta job! "My boss is 32 and a little prick if you ask me, but I'm in the real world now." He starts next week. We offered to take him out to dinner, but he and Mom took a taxi down to II Fornaio in Palo Alto. They wanted to get pissed. My parents!

We had this competition inside the office to come up with alternative solutions as to what to do with what is (to the Russians) the increasingly embarrassing and willfully nondecomposing body of Vladimir I. Lenin. The suggestions:

SUSAN:

"Put Lenin in a tuxedo and use him as a seat filler at the Academy Awards. At the Oscar ceremonies they have this big holding pen full of attractive people in gowns and tuxes and whenever the Academy gives away the awards for achievement in sound and everyone flees into the lobby, seat fillers are zoomed in so that the cameras scanning the audience won't register any vacant seats. When Daniel Day-Lewis has to go to the bathroom, the cameras could zoom in and see a picture of Sigourney Weaver sitting next to . . . Lenin!"

DUSTY:

"The Reagans would, like, probably rilly enjoy having Lenin in their billiard room in Santa Barbara. They could put him inside a fake suit of armor (which they no doubt already own) and then when Henry Kissinger came over, Nancy could say, "Ooh, Henry - who do you think we have here tonight with us," and she could skreeeek open the little faceplate and there would be - Lenin! - and they could all giggle."

BUG:

"The Lenster's dead, but that doesn't mean he can't endorse products, does it? At the very least, Benetton could fit him into one of their sweaters. That's a two-page magazine spread right there. Revlon? Len Babe must look like hell after all these years. Maybe Clinique has some nice, youthful goo they could slap onto his face - a makeover! Makeovers are the official art form of the 1990s, you know."

Dusty tried to get us to do aerobics in mid-afternoon, but all she got were six insolent stares. She, like, jogs to Oakland during her lunch hour or something. People in the Bay Area are so extreme.

Ethan is getting involved in an Antarctic banking scheme: "No regulation! " I bet if the Chicago futures market started selling plutonium futures, Ethan would be in like spit.

Look and Feel and the gerbil babies make a real racket now. The way they race around the office . . . it's as if the walls are alive.

It turns out that three of us visited the Gap independently of each other today, and when we found out, we got spooked, and we analyzed the Gap, trying to make ourselves feel better about our vague mood of consumer victimization.

Susan says the Gap is smart because they cut it both ways: "Kids in Armpit, Nebraska, go into a Gap with pictures in their heads of Manhattan, Claudia Schiffer, and the Concorde, while kids in Manhattan go into the Gap with a picture in their head of Armpit, Nebraska. So it's as though Gap clothing puts you anywhere except where you actually are."