Sunset & Twilight: Art made with Lasers & Maths

 Sat. 18 Feb 2023 14:16
I've just got back from dropping the mirrors off at my local framers (and getting my car washed, followed by a late brunch, but that's just facts which otherwise ruin a good narrative), so I'm sitting down to write this now the with intention of leaving it in Drafts until after handover. I wanted to capture the details of the process, and record the multiply-nested references I included whilst it's fresh in my mind, so as to reduce the potential for the sort of unintentional ret-con which occurs with the passage of time. I already know this is going to be a long one, which I mention so you can switch to a larger screen than your phone (an inference I've made over the last few months), make yourself a cup of tea (pure conjecture) and buckle in for an adventure into this 'Art of Darkness' (after all, Mistah Raven, he wanker). 

(Since this has all come from our various emails, I'll cite the references by Subject and Date. If for some reason your archives are less comprehensive than mine I'll laughingly punch myself in the face provide, but I calculate the chances of that to be vanishingly small so will save myself the effort of screen-grabbing or quoting.)

Act I: Inception
How the concept for this mysterious Art Project emerged is murky. I can tell you the seeds for the idea had been bouncing around for a while before they coalesced into an idea which made me think "hey, that'd be cool...". The date-stamp on the oldest mockup designs in my archive says January 8th, but I'm pretty sure it was a 'thing' in my head in that deadzone between Xmas and NYE. That out of the way, it started with what what has been an ongoing thread of ours: 

(1. "Old thread was old. New thread..." Mon, 21 Mar 2022, 21:39)

I'll admit without insincere shame that I've always been a little proud of that one. For something I came up with on the fly it's had a disproportionate impact on the conversations which followed, and has proven almost universally understandable. 

Later you provided the background: 

(2. "My turn to write the subject line" Sun, 27 Nov 2022, 17:47)

Somewhere in the the sifting churn of my brain's sort-and-file process (during, I suspect, a conversation I was having with someone about my Fascinating Penpal and our even-more-fascinating conversations) these converged with the concept of "reflecting", and "commonality", and "like-ness", and the imagery of the subject I used for (3. "Familiar reflections in a darkened mirror..." Sat. 19 Nov 2022, 12:08) which provided the third element. 

The "dark mirror" reference comes from a few different places. Primarily it's a reference to the Star Trek "Mirror Universe" (first appearing in The Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror" where the ship gets bamf'd to an alternative timeline filled with ruthless sociopathic versions of themselves. It's the origin of the trope where the "evil" version of a character has a goatee: 

The "Dark Mirror" phrasing comes from a book set in The Next Generation era connected with the same place. NOT, in this case, anything to do with the TV series "Black Mirror". More generally, the concept/imagery is pretty common - "window as a doorway", people talking to aspects of themselves in dreams, Alice and the Looking Glass, and you can probably name a bunch I can't. I used the concept in the same email in the phrase "reflected in tear-wrapped eyes" (4. "Familiar reflections in a darkened mirror'' Sat. 19 Nov 2022, 12:08). 

As the concept took shape I found myself fascinated by the conceptual layering that I could see stretching out in front of me (almost like standing between two mirrors? Or is that too much metacursion?): 

1. Each as a reflection of each other (as intimated in the email). 
2. Following from #1, "I see you in the mirror" in that if reflection = equivalence then the viewer and/or reflection are interchangeable, so this remains true. 
3. Cutting the phrase into the back of the mirror, removing, as it were, the mirror to imply "I see THROUGH you" - the artifice, the masks, the facades we wear when we're out in the world, to what lies within, or beneath. 

And what you see beneath the revealing cut is your sunset, where your "Luna" can escape the harsh light of the sun to which she is bound, becomes free from duty, and in that balance-point between light and dark is free to dream. 

Or something like that. 

If two people view the same sun setting in different places, at different times, is it the same sunset (5. "Struggling" Sun, 4 Dec 2022, 23:39)?

Of course not. 

And if the perspective offered by the point of view is different over 3000km, does that still hold true when it's 3000mm? 

Of course it does. 

But if you could see the same thing, in the same place, at the same time, from two sets of eyes, would that not offer an astounding depth of HDR metaperception? 

Of course I have no way of knowing because the concept is utter wank of the two-handed variety. 

Act II: Execution

Accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR-ahv40s5s 

So there was a concept. Turning it into An Actual Thing has been long-running work-in-progress. I knew I was going to want a mirror, and access a laser cutter. Oddly, I think the conversation I had with one of my clients about things one can do with a laser cutter in early/mid-December may have contributed to the idea landing in the first place. I checked what the limitations of that were (which turned out to be a maximum dimension of 600mm x 400mm). Plugging that into the software I used to design the "This machine kills problems" stickers, I threw the words in and shuffled them around until I found something I liked. 

For a start, I wanted a mirror you could actually see yourself in - large enough to be useful, where the words didn't interfere with the primary purpose of the thing. Being usable was, in fact, CRITICAL, because that's part of me; if I'm not useFUL, then I am by definition useLESS. I'm certainly not ornamental, and neither is damn-near anything I create. 

It also had to balance (I'm a Libra; balance is a thing. That said, I'm also a Monkey, so my approach for achieving balance is often chaotic). 

To start off, I had to turn the concept into a design. 

Mon. 20 Feb 18:21

My phone pinged an hour earlier than expected to tell me that Rick had knocked off work and was heading to the pub, resulting in a well-deserved and (mostly self-inflicted) hangover ("Combing the mess of tangled threads..." Sun. 19 Feb 2023 14:34), so yesterday was not what you'd call productive. Narrative continues with token-if-any effort applied to tone-matching or continuity. 

I like art, because I love communication ("Scheduling" Tue, 9 Aug 2022, 10:49); the expression of thought and feeling transcends the medium or language in which it's represented. Whether it's a painting or a photograph, the graceful movements of a ballerina or motorcycle racer, 

the beat and rhythm of music, rhyme and cadence of verse, chiselled marble or welded street-signs, so long as the artist left a piece of their soul embedded in their work, I'm there. You know my primary medium, of course; you're looking at it right now, have revelled in it, received barrages of it as I fire it off into the ether, each time praying that the audience remains receptive and that her reply might contain new threads from which I might weave fresh cloth. 

I imagine often, but rarely dream. 

I Do Not Dance, but I have danced*.  

My lips don't move, but you've heard my song. 

My hands can't draw, but give me a thousand words I'll paint a picture in your mind that breaks the rule of thirds. 

* Sadly few audiences have been receptive. 

Occasionally tho, I try something new: 

So I took the concept and broke it down, each component its own problem to solve, and reached out to my client, ordered three mirrors from Ikea (which were conveniently on sale), and started playing with vector images. What came out was this: 

That was what I ran past Ian ("Re: Metacursion...: a coda." Mon. 23 Jan, 2023 20:11). 

It was what I was explaining to April and Tim ("Re: Metacursion...: a coda." 16 Jan, 2023 22:18) and why, after they left, it was still open when I started that thread in the first place ("Metacursion..." Sat. 14 Jan 2023, 22:59).* 

* I've taken great joy in dropping these hints here and there, watching you not even nibble on the bait (which has been equal measure frustrating (because I really wanted you to) and fun (but have been glad you didn't, and it allowed me to keep building towards the big-reveal), but I've thoroughly enjoyed the game ("Musicals Are Garbage (more recycling)..." Sun. 29 Jan 2023, 22:43). 

With the mirrors in hand, I booked a job with another of my Marine clients, and headed down for a frantic afternoon/evening (I had to go back and forth between sites to accommodate both missions). Three, I figured, would give me two I could fuck up and still get one right. The first pass of the cutter was not a success, but not catastrophic as far as failures go (there were decent odds that the glass would shatter if the laser was set too high). In the end, we only needed the one sacrifice - we just re-ran the cut again and again over different sections until we got it right: 

Then it was just a case of re-running the cycle... only to have both passes go wrong differently. I won't go into those because I'll have already done so, but I was struck as I surveyed the results how perfect each was in its individual imperfection; one with a glitch, the other with a shimmy exclusively affecting the struck-out words. 

Over the next week or two I messed around with the Sacrifice, looking at different ways to bring the colour to the fore: 

I found that the cutting process had vaporised the laminated backing, but the outermost layer of plastic had burned, and in doing so mixed with the powdered glass to create a residue layer (visible in patches of the "what" above). Removing this by carefully scraping it out (I tried a variety of tools, eventually finding that a stanley knife was best, with final detail performed using a small screwdriver from a mobile phone repair kit) you could see through much better. In the pic above, the second 'e' was painted directly on the glass with some modelling paint I had lying around. The 's' and first 'e' have a layer of Gorilla Glue applied which reduced the hazing, and with the orange painted on top of that. In the 's' you can see a paint sample card from Bunnings showing through. I liked the sense of depth that provided (as opposed to the second 'e' which feels like the orange is embedded in the glass). This had the added benefit that I didn't have to try to colour-match paint to your original design (although I spent quite a while in Spotlight working out whether that might be doable ("Re: Musicals Are Garbage (more recycling)...: another coda..." Thu, 9 Feb 20232 16:26): 

Mon. 20 Feb 21:44

The arrival of pizza brought with it respite from what's starting to feel a lot like the "then Harry, Hermione, and Ron went camping for 4 months of adolescent angst and subsumed polyamorous and/or homoerotic tension" dead-space in the middle of The Deathly Hallows, in that it's important to show that time passed, but even the author was getting kinda bored with it by about half-way through. Much like the 7th Harry Potter book there was a whole lot of scratching around outdoors, the short-of-attention-span passed out from boredom, no one got laid, and after a couple of hours each we were all relieved it was over: 

5 coats of clear gloss acrylic enamel later, I had a finish which corrected the frosted-glass effect from the laser process enough to be optically adequate so that I didn't have to paint the next stage by hand (which... I was gearing up for mentally, but was also fucking relieved about to be honest): 

(OK, it's hard to see. A lot of these didn't come out in photos, but it was a bunch of painstaking effort which was, I think, entirely worth it.)

Act III: Calculation

You may have noticed (if your eyes haven't glazed over) that the plan and design were for one mirror, but here I was with two. The 'obvious' assumption would be that I'd just make two of them, but since that would be boring you know that's obviously NOT where this was going (and... well, you've seen the outcome already... yeah, I need to reframe). 

Over those hours I spent pouring blood, sweat, and tears into the reverse of those mirrors I had a lot of time to think about semiotics. Looking back at the original concept, one is fine, but two... this is one of the few times I've come up with a bi-partite concept like this - my cycles *always* run in three's... except here, where it's all about duality. I wasn't banking on having two, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to run with it. 

So if a mirror is a window beyond which is a darker reflection of yourself, an identical pair is just literary laziness. 

That Sunset is (a reflection of) you - the warmth of the day fading into the cool stillness of night, an image of beauty existing entirely in that space between zero and one. It belongs to you; you shared it with me, but it was never FOR me, and putting it on my wall would be sheer presumption (plus it really wouldn't suit my decor). What does suit my decor? Blues, greys, black: 

So to maintain a thematic connection I would be reflected as Twilight; the day's warmth a fading memory under a seamless dome of limitless depths pierced by the cold glimmer of uncaring stars. 

In keeping with the "two parts of a unified whole"/"quantum-entangled pair" (instead of unique iterations of a concept) theme, there had to a direct connection in the design, so I developed a progression - extending the original instead of replacing it, I took the top 6 of the 11 rows (maintaining the original as 'primary' which serves as a respectful hat-tip) and set them at the bottom of the image. I opened Excel, and mapped the colour codes (in decimal for expediency) so I could chart the progression mathematically; I thought you of all people would appreciate a data-driven approach. I tried a couple of different methods (my maths is not great), starting with a simple average of the rate of decline, then manually adjusting to re-introduce a little chaos: 

I gotta say, I'm really quite pleased with the outcome: 

Knowing I wouldn't have to find 16 perfect paint matches (whether perfectionism, OCD, or sheer bloody-mindedness is a coin I'll leave for you to toss) and then spend a week of painstaking painting, masking, painting some more, fucking up, starting over, painting, masking, running out of one of the colours, order more, wait until it arrives, receive something ever-so-slightly the wrong shade, persevere, paint, mask, crease the canvas, fall to my knees and scream at an uncaring universe until my throat is raw, all the mirrors are shattered from frustration, and all I have left to show for all of this are torn canvas, paint on my shoes, the shards of broken dreams, and 21 years of bad luck... 

Sorry, spiraled a little there. Let me start that over: 

Not having to paint meant... I was kinda done. I could have gone and built the frames and mounted it all, except I have a really good framer who also offers photo-quality printing services in dimensions of up to 1.2m x 30m, and framed almost all the art in my house, to whom I could outsource, so I did. 

Sometimes the personal, by-hand approach is important, but when it won't improve the outcome, creates unnecessary project risk, or worse, stops being fun, I'm not shy about throwing money at a problem to make it go away. 

Shit, how the fuck do you think I make a living? 

If you want to be the change you want to see sometimes you got to spread that shit around. 

Plus how could I NOT choose digital perfection, when the original source material was presented in fucking binary? 

But it's now 23:38 and I've been at this for quite a few episodes of Disenchantment (I've seen it before - it's one of my "I want to watch something but I'm too tired/drunk/distracted/depressed/circle-all-that-apply to actually pay attention" go-to shows). Half of this will probably need a rewrite, although this bit's really more of a recipe than a narrative so perhaps I'm expecting too much. 

That's Future Pete's Problem, and fuck that guy. 

Wed. 22 Feb, 2023 22:54

Act IV: Conclusion

Getting back from helping Ricky collect her dad's car from the hospital he took himself to on Monday when, after feeling increasingly feverish over the course of the day, scratched his balls and had his fingers come back covered in pus and blood (short version: neither of us wants to know HOW he wound up with gangrene on/in/around his left testicle, but with a reported blood sugar level of 24 at the time of admission (safe being 5-7) the phrase "I don't think we're in Kansas (or 'pre-diabetes') any more, Dipshit" springs to mind), I sat down to make a proper go of finishing this off. I glanced at where I'd got to. queried my word-generator for what to say next and received: 

What the fuck am I doing? 

What the ever-loving fuck am I doing? 

Plugging the above into Notepad++, I found that over 5 days and 3 sessions I've generated 3091 words of... is it drivel? I don't even want to read it to find out. If this was one of our MBA assignments I'd be deeply into "see me after class" territory. Add another 16,000 for the pictures I included (one of which one is a collage of 8!) and thank fuck pictures, charts, and tables didn't count. 

3091 words, plus the 81 above, plus these and those which will inevitably follow of smug self-congratulation written about a self-indulgent vanity exercise explaining just how fucking clever I am to someone who has literally no reason to give a shit or still be reading (although who my predictive behavioural model tells me stills is; enrapt, fascinated, and increasingly concerned but this new plot-twist). 

But finish this I will, because of course I will (indeed, does your predictive behavioural model for me suggest I'll do anything else? I mean, I sent it, and the scroll-bar still has a gap underneath, so the answer is obvious, but in my POV it's nailed to the bottom of the window and the future is as-yet unwritten). 

For me, subject to the Tyranny of Distance and Time's Arrow, all of this is in the future; an Unsent Letter written in homage of an artefact-as-yet-unborn, a fever-dream wrought in powdered shards of broken glass, paint-fumes, and presumption, printed in the ink of literary-Onanism, provided by irresponsibly inconvenienced electrons, and presented by mistreated and abused photons, having been propelled by the tap of a finger which, until somewhere between 16 and 26 minutes ago, has been poised over a blue button labelled "Send". 

The mirrors are still at the framers. 

I am still in Perth. 

The catharsis which for you was half an hour or so ago is, for me, nothing more than a fantasy. 

Sitting here in the post-midnight darkness of my garden, and across from you as you read this, I live in the moment described by the swing of a pendulum; the Everlong arc between tick and tock. 

Schroedinger's Dickhead watching as the box begins to open. . 

Between when a random flash of inspiration led me to create the accidentally perfect expression of a complex, but indelible sentiment, and my finger fell. 

A Random Act of Art, of which this letter itself is part. 

I had a huge amount of fun doing this. 

All of it. 

Everything that was involved, and led up to it. 

And, I will allow myself the hubris to hope, whatever comes after. 

But now, as you read the line after this, it's done. 

Because if you look over at your Sunset, there you'll see what I did. 

Regards, 

Peter. 

Accept the fall...

 "Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next." 

No musical accompaniment for this one - I don't have anything in mind, but I'm listening to "Happy You're Gone" by Placebo right this second if that helps. 

I slid across the line and onto the plane with no safety margin, no time left, and nothing left in the tank. I cut it so fine my checked luggage weighed in at 22.8kg, and I was 8th-last to board. I originally had 40-50 minutes leeway until I picked up my suitcase and freaked out at how heavy it was, so I lost 10min pulling out some things I can live without for a while, then another 15min having Dave swing past mums place to drop them off. 

The rest I lost when I realised just as we were pulling in to the airport that I'd left my Kobo on the side table in the living room. Dave managed to get home and back whilst I did my bag drop and pre-flight nicotine-fix, handed it to me through the window of his car and I bolted for the gate... after he did a quick bog-lap of the car park to give me my keys back. 

Then I ran. 

From the moment I sat down in my nowhere-near-as-comfortable-as-my-usual seat I've been falling inexorably sideways, sliding over the surface of the globe on a shockwave generated in the space where physics and mechanics meet. Moments like this remind me of an Andy McNab book I read half of once where he talks about parachuting. All the planning of your jump, packing the chute, double- and triple-checking, ends the moment you're in freefall. At that point the only way is down, so stop worrying and get ready for what you need to do when you get to the end. The same goes, in a way, for falls of much smaller distances. If you trip you can flail and struggle on your way down and try to prevent it, or accept the fact that you're falling and focus on what's important; it's not the fall that hurts after all. 

So I had to dump a bunch of things with my mother, but they're mostly boxed up well enough I can call in a courier pickup when she gets back from the trip she's on. 

I'd completely forgotten that one of the power sockets in my (old) bedroom has a damaged mounting and is hanging loose on the wall, but it's safe enough so long as you don't go poking the back of it and I've already called in my Pocket Sparkie. 

I left the place a lot messier than I'd have liked, but I apologised whilst waiting for Dave to get back and will book a cleaner for them. 

I've missed, forgotten, or dropped the ball on a whole lot of odds and ends, but I can't change or prevent any of that now. I have 61min now before I hit the ground, so far better I focus on ensuring it's my shoes which catch and release the pavement with a rapid cadence. 

55 min (I just zoned out staring at the cursor blinking patiently in front of me) and I need to start running again; every step another fall. No point in kicking and screaming, just keep kicking the ground to keep my feet between my face and the pavement until, one way or another, the falling comes to an end. As the Pete-pocalypse draws closer that's all I have room for. Whatever the other side looks like, I'll kick that in the face when I get there. 

Regards, 

Peter. 

Well, fuck...

What day, man. What a fucking day.

Musical accompaniment #1 - yeah, it's Freak Kitchen (because I totally planned it out this way (I did not in any way plan it out this way, but if there's a gift I've gained later in life it's been recognising where there's a flow and going with it (then leaving myself enough wriggle-room when it comes to whether or not I take credit))):

(Hold onto your hat for this one)  Freak Kitchen - The Ranks Of The Terrified

Ricky left a little while ago - she has work tomorrow and yet another bout of sinusitis, so we hung out in the garden rather than venturing further afield. I've sat staring at the city lights across the water so many times I could almost draw it from memory (if I could, in fact, draw), and whatever happens next will have a chance to to do so again. After tomorrow the opportunity to sit in my Emperor-of-the-scrap-heap homage-to-thrift-and-upcycling-writ-in-Jarrah throne-of-the-Wog-King chair is far less certain. It was a goodbye which neatly fit my theme of exeunt-anti-climactic and what-the-fuck-even-is-goodbye?

We were sitting here when her phone pinged with a message from her Strata Nemesis to say that he was resigning from the Council.

Shock was experienced. 

Chairs were fallen out of. 

The email was read out to me (which was a hilarious reversal of our usual roles) and I sat here stunned, before dictating her reply: 
"Resignation accepted. 
Be well, 
R-- A--."
Then I had her message her ally on the Council of Owners, who immediately complied with her request to second it.

I've been consulting on this for years now - mentoring and guiding from the shadows Machiavelli-style as she's navigated his constant barrage of racist, misogynist derision and harassment. Even more gratifyingly, she triggered this without my help; simply followed the patterns, applied what I've taught, and backed this white middle-aged fuckstick into a corner he couldn't claw his way out of. For him to give up like that... was almost depressing, as much as we were elated. We were supposed to defeat, destroy, and demolish him. Having him concede and capitulate like a coward seems comparatively pyrrhic, but a victory is a victory deserving the highest-of-five's, even if was a confusing catharsis we'd not chosen. 

And on this of all days...

We hugged, and I made her promise to come and visit in the depths of winter so we can goth up to the max, then we argued about whether I'd come to her "I FINISHED UNI" Party or her graduation, then we hugged, and I helped load the last cerulean-blue pot I found in my garden into her car, then we hugged some more.
Then she left and I grabbed my laptop. 

What a day. 

Musical accompaniment #2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdzokBL0JNM

I had Dan-from-The-Bottlo helping me today - the only help I needed or accepted through all of this. I dropped him off afterwards rather than sending him away on his eScooter because I'd given him so many of my discards he wasn't sure he could carry it all. I'd already given him my desk (I'd told him I'd pay him, and compromised by letting that payment be the desk). The pile grew as we talked, and got a bit silly. When he dropped around on Saturday I gave him the Fletcher Jones suit coat I'd bought when I was 18, which I wore on my first date with Marcia, which was decently older than he is. By the time I dropped him off he had some other nice threads, a rivet gun (and a lesson on how to use it), and my Wahl clippers (he was saying how he really wanted the same haircut as me with the shaved sides.

I asked "Really? I could do that right now." 

He accepted, so I grabbed my clippers and made it happen.
Then I kicked him out of the seat and told him to help me out in kind.
So we cut each other's hair.
How bro-mantic is that???
So I gave him the clippers. I have a cordless set I use more often, and it saved me from trying to juggle the weight). 

We shared the last two cigarettes in my pack and as we binned them I turned to this guy I've known properly for maybe three months, who nicknamed me "The Beer Connoisseur" when he served me at the bottlo and I knew the difference between a Russian Imperial Stout and an Oatmeal Stout, who's literally half-my-age and young-enough-to-be-my-son (but treats me like a mate, not an ersatz-dad), who wanted to hang out because he's only ever been to Bunbury and Perth (which barely count as two separate places in my world), and after three random anecdotes decided that "[I've] been everywhere and tell the most amazing stories," and wanted to hear as many as I could cram into what time we could find (he thinks you're fascinating and would rather like to meet you, just so you know), said "Hey, bring it in, man," and we hugged. Now we're Friends on Facebook because he asked, and why the fuck not; how could I possibly decline? 

What a fucking day. 

We'd taken Beckett to the boarding kennel he's spending tonight in, took my bed and a few other odds and ends to Binky's Studio, and loaded mum's station wagon up with stuff I'm either giving to, or stowing with, her when I realised we'd left some stuff out of both deliveries. Silly things; honey Dave had given me for mum, and the whale-shaped doorstop which Jenna bought from Bunnings forever-and-a-day ago, has held open the dividing-door ever since, and which Binky had grown fond of when she was house-sitting (she told me when I returned after my month in Canberra that she routinely said good-night to it), so I pinged her with an "Oh fuck!". 

So she came out to collect it, and was kind enough to drop mum's stuff off on her doorstep for me. It gave her one more chance to tell me to "Be good, don't do anyone [she] wouldn't do," and get a hug

So we hugged, she managed not to cry, and she fanged away in her hardtop convertible to complete my obligation and grab some fuel from Costco. 

What a day. 

Now I'm sitting here listening to Freak Kitchen, drinking the last of the booze in my fridge and trying... not so much to make sense of it all as present it so it makes sense. Hide just came on, which brings things full-circle for me in a way; I told you in one of those early emails post-Project that it had been the theme song for my Masters Aftermath (Master-math?); I can't find the email to cite, but I swear it to be true. I find myself now unwilling and unable to hide. 

All these loops tying themselves off so neatly; snakes biting the tails of snakes biting the tales of snakes so thoroughly and concurrently that none of them are quite sure who's biting whom, but they're all latched and swallowing, drawing the the gordian knot of Huginn and Muninn so tight it resembles nothing more than the full stop at the end of a sentence of 12 years from which I've finally been granted parole. 

Oh, and Scott pinged me to say that the parcel I've been anxiously tracking for the last 8 days arrived this morning: 

What a fucking day. 

Witness me. 

As if I leave you with much of a choice. 

Regards, 

Peter. 

Two minutes to midnight...

 Initial musical accompaniment - More Freak Kitchen: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHkLU0BgeM8

I'd a romanticised thought a couple of days ago as I sat here in my one-size-fits-me outdoor chair how cool it would be to write you every day through this last week, without purpose or subtext, for no more glorious a purpose than to drain the ideas from my brain, provide some light entertainment for both parties, and because really what better have I to do? Tonight I feel I am undone. I know not what to say. 

So I thought I'd start with that. 

In the interest of saying that which need not be, but cannot be claimed to have been said otherwise, there is of course no reply expected. Read, consider, enjoy (should it so inspire you), and comment if and As You Like It (flashback humour; see what I did there?). 

The FrogRocket left today without incident, and with it the last of the bulk possessions I'm sending over. Whatever doesn't fit in my Qantas allotment goes to my tenant (although there's still a box of fragiles which I'll bundle up carefully tomorrow and organise to be couriered). I hiked over to my mother's house (only 2km) to collect her VW Station Wagon. Tomorrow I'll hitch a rented trailer to it and use it to deliver my bed (which I'm sure I've mentioned before won't fit in the new place) to a friend who'll use it as a spare until I one day ask for it back (it's almost entirely Jarrah, and the mob who made it no longer exists. Jarrah is a beautiful hardwood native exclusively to the south-west, the colour of drying blood. Look it up). With that gone I need to do a rapid clean of what used to be my bedroom, stuff things into my suitcase, then drink anything alcoholic left in the fridge. 

And hang out with Ricky, of course. We'll probably go sit by the river; it's pretty down there as you've now seen both in day and night, and it's kinda my Thing. 

This whole episode has been exhausting and painful. I will, I expect, crash hard come Sunday. It's served as a valuable distraction from work which has been a whole different eyeball-melting flavour of stress. I've been spared much of it by my lack of proximity, although that carries a stress all of its own; when you can see the effects, but not the cause, it's easy to assume that you're being cut out of the loop For Reasons. I've anecdotal indication that it's Not Just Me, but Bosslady's facade finally broke enough today to show the strain she's under; she actually admitted to how much she's looking forward to my being there which, whilst gratifying, is even more terrifying (where you, Becky (I still have no idea how you feel about that - your email address formed my nickname for you. I find it glorious in a way - so ostensibly vacuous, so fundamentally misleading. It's like suggesting that jumping in a puddle is the same as falling into the middle of the Pacific Ocean at terminal velocity because either way your feet will get wet, or describing stepping out into a tornado as "a bit breezy". On the other hand, you call yourself "Bec" which somehow feels diminutive and dismissive. I, on the other hand, am the only person I know who calls me "Pete"), have mastered the art of communicating in half-spoken allusion, Bosslady communicates exclusively in negative-space. For her to express a direct sentiment like that goes beyond a cry, into the territory of screaming for help). 

"It will all get easier once [I'm] [there]," has become a recurring phrase in our conversations. 

I'm increasingly convinced that this staggering fall across the finish line is not so much the end of a long Exodus into the land of milk and honey as it is the prelude for another march to war. After the last year of fighting on beaches, landing grounds, fields, streets, and hills. I've become thoroughly sick of constant, total war. This year was supposed to be the time where swords were beat into ploughshares, not taken up as arms against a sea of troubles. 

This was supposed to be my return to Eden, not a new Battle for Utopia. 

"But," I remind myself, "this is why they pay me the big bucks." 

I've not been so singular in my purpose, let alone idle, this last year that I arrive without a path laid in advance. I keep reminding myself that I don't need to fight every battle through to the last; I just need to set up the field and pull the trigger. 

"Gort, Klaatu barada nikto." 

Another day, another melodrama. I'd be ashamed if any of this was planned more than a few sentences in advance, but that would spoil the fun of finding out what I'm going to say the same way you are; one line at a time. The time for scheming is long-since past. We're deep into execution-space now, and as the hours tick by I'm rapidly approaching the end of my plans. By midnight Friday the hands on the clock will have lined up at the vertical: Pete-Zero. 

The Pete-pocalypse. 

What happens next is anyone's guess, but I've no doubt that you'll be listed under 'I' on my RACI at the very least. 

Regards, 

Peter. 

On the twelfth day of packing I kinda miss TV...

Musical accompaniment - Swedish Prog Rockers Freak Kitchen: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ-3r2aEYcM

I broke the back of it today after reaching a despair-point last night when I test-packed the car only to find that a depressing amount of stuff wouldn't fit. Today, after being utterly demoralised by The Big Bossman, I sucked it up and repacked, with the aid of Actually Folding Clothes rather than just stuffing them into the bag, spending the last of my stockpile of Vacuum Bags (stuff full, connect nozzle to the valve and suck the air out), and reloading whilst humming the Tetris theme, I got it done. I have a ridiculous pile of clothes to discard, but they're things I'm unlikely to fit again, or sufficiently the wrong side of threadbare. 

Other discards consist of cleaning supplies, mostly-empty shampoo bottles, and the like. Things you take because waste-not, but unjustifiable if you're paying by the cubic metre. The bin will eat hearty once the op shop has taken their cut, otherwise hopefully my tenant will make use of what I leave behind. 

I sat down in my creaking-Frankenstinian-Monster outdoor chair (which I'm going to miss until I build a new one - I see some Ikea Hacking in my future; by Odin, my power tools will meet me in Valhalla) with a beer to unwind and look at what was going on in the world, but the world proved to be boringly depressing, so I thought "fuck it" and hit the Compose button to open a new email. 

This is another "no reply expected" email - I'm writing because it seems like something to do, a pressure-release vent for my head, and a victimless crime (in that I'm yet to hear you complain about receiving guilt-free content). Tonight I'm trying to avoid too many 'death' metaphors - I may have gone overmuch to that well in my last, although far from unintentional and once again I apologise for nothing. 

I've been doing this, obligatory social interludes aside, near-on non-stop for nearly a fortnight now, an asymptotic, Sisaphyan task which never quite seems to be done. I know that when I roll off the couch (my bed is going to a friend's place the day before I fly) on Thursday morning, lock the door for the second-last time (because you just know I'll need to dart back in for one final spot-check or to grab something I'm sure I forgot) and knock on Dave's door I'll be leaving unsatisfied, lamenting how lacklustre a job I did. I'll console myself knowing that I did the best I could, and there's nothing I leave here I can't replace, rebuild, or repatriate. 

I watched my bike get swallowed by a container truck today. 
The car goes tomorrow. 
I'll run Beckett out to JetPet's boarding facility on Wednesday, and after Ricky leaves I'll likely sit here surrounded by dust and luggage, and reach once more for the Compose button. 
It's like the end of Return of The King as all the characters depart, just without the pedophillic undertones of the grown-arse men grinning whilst the child-like hobbits romp and embrace on an over-large bed). I'll always remember the final MacHall comic strip tho: 

Credit: Matt Boyd - http://www.machall.com/

My sense of "Semper Inexpletus" (you may recall as the title I gave to my last mix-tape) notwithstanding, I'm pleased with how I Project Managed all of this.
For all that everything has come down to the wire on timing, it's only been possible because I allowed slack and contingency.
For all that I've struggled, I persevered and I achieved.
For all that I'm physically and emotionally demolished, I got it done. 
There is still an I.
And he can still stand. 
That seems worthy of note. 

A long time ago in a city far, far away (although not so far from where you are right now), I came up with an aspirational "family motto" (which I never really used because it's tres' wanktastic) "Through adversity, ascendence". Rebirth (or Resurrection) is never gentle, let alone kind. You have to die before you can be reborn after all, and for all that we're born in pain and blood, in death that pain and blood are our own. For all the badassery of rolling the stone back from his tomb, putting his hands over his eyes and looking at the crowd saying "Do I LOOK like I'm bullshitting?", Christ died in agony, drenched in blood, broken, betrayed, forsaken, and alone. 

Whatever doesn't kill me just leaves me angrier, and with a vindictive sense of humour. 
Everything worthwhile comes at a cost. 
Buy the ticket, take the ride. 

But there are already flowers beginning to bloom on the slopes of Golgotha; soon enough they'll climb the frames left on the hill and turn their faces to the sun, because the process of rebuilding is now underway. 
After a 10min phone call to my ISP the internet connection will be spun up and ready at Northbourne by the time I land, ready for me to plug my router in (I haven't decided on a name for my wifi yet - if you have a suggestion I'll consider it). 
Just before launching this email, I ordered a mattress which I may be able to sleep on (Sandra checked what's in there and deemed it back-wreckingly soft), timed to arrive just after I do. 
My Art Project is still on-track to arrive just beforehand. 
And there are a couple of bottles of moderately-ancient wine I've had cellaring sitting in my suitcase which I've every intention of opening on Friday (I may even wait for your arrival if you're that way inclined) and pouring out, sealing my new covenant in blood-analog. 

OK, so I failed at avoiding the 'death' metaphors, but I blame you for invoking Easter; I can never resist a good biblical reference, but I'll ameliorate it with a Cyanide & Happiness joke: 

Credit: Rob DenBleyker - https://explosm.net/comics/rob-myblood

That'll do, I think. Time to go see how Thomas Covenant is going to be a whiny little bitch next ("Waah, I'm a leper, outcast, unclean! This is all a dream, and you're making me walk for days and days but oooh hey, a stone knife I can shave with! I feel better now."). 

I'm not hating it; I wouldn't take the piss otherwise, but I still want to punch him in the face with a brick. 

Regards, 

Peter. 

Choose your own catharsis...

I'll admit to a degree of disquiet I've had since receiving, reviewing, and re-reading your "Resurrection" email. I find myself wondering what your self-deprecation and indicated surprise at consideration, regular underestimations of personal value, expressions of surprise at external validation, have been for. 

Are they genuine? I believe so.
Are they fishing for compliments? Possibly.
Are they an expression of a request to continue? I've taken them as such. 

I wonder whether I've somehow misrepresented the value I place in our communication such that you've underestimated how important these letters have become. You've been unambiguous about their worth to you, the value you ascribe, and their conversity to the worth you feel you've been afforded in your 'Real World' life. Have I been any less so? Has my own yearning to be seen. heard, understood, been in any way unclear? The need to hear the audience say: 

"More, I prithee, more!"
"It will make you melancholy, Madame Becky."
"I thank it.
More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs.
More, I prithee, more."

(I owe a debt of gratitude to ChatGPT, who helped me find the verse I was looking for there)

I expect no written response; you can tell me when you see me. 

"And," I say in a way which would sound far more ominous were it not for the obvious literary reference, "you will see me." 

You're receiving this because I'm sitting on my cobbled-together knicked-from-kerbside-collections chair out the front of my gutted no-longer-feels-like-Home house dining on ashes and a rum+cold brew+coke. I'd be quiescing my mind with the umpteenth re-watch of Lower Decks right now were both my TV and Media Server not residing in boxes in a container on a truck (or train). I could be reading Lord Foul's Bane (which I'm now 15% of the way through having almost reached the point where I stopped 2/3 of a lifetime ago), but that will come soon enough. Instead, I'm writing because I feel, not so much inspired, but compelled to do so. 

19.5 years ago I left Perth. I organised a Farewell to say goodbye to anyone-and-everyone who wanted one. It seemed a momentous occasion - a turning point, mourned and celebrated with much pomp and pageantry. I remember my Going Away Party vividly - many pints of Newcastle Brown Ale at The Moon & Sixpence (which no longer exists) in the city, surrounded by loved ones. I was transported to the airport in a small parade, led to the gate in a procession led by a statuesque Chinese-Singaporean girl in Top Hat-and-Tails carrying an umbrella as her sceptre (we're having dinner tomorrow night). I recall blogging about it later, saying "As I looked out the window of the plane the rain fell like tears; I do not think it wept for me." 

This time is far more "not with a bang, but a whimper." 

I've been far too self-absorbed for that this time. It's far less like an end, or a beginning, just... a transition. In a chat with the Herald from that parade: 

Because I've had no desire for attention; "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." No less importance, just far less impact. Not that there's not been any: 

(Do you think she got The Cure reference?)

I caught up with my "Winderkind-Uber-Genius Cray Supercomputer/HPC/Distributed Storage" friend last night; a fabulously broken ubermensch who's IQ dwarfs ours who I'm ashamed to say looks up to me as the closest he's found in his very-long 28 years of life to a mentor-and-peer. 

He owed me a pint. 

We wound up sitting here listening to my Mashups Playlist, talking about hyper-tech and The Singularity and my Penpal (he thinks you're fascinating and would rather like to meet you, just so you know), and as we were really getting into our stride my neighbour Dave wandered through the gate. 

Dave and I have never really been 'close', but we've always got along. He's rescued swarms of bees from my driveway - he keeps bees in the shade of the enormous gumtrees in his back yard, and always has honey for me which I give away because... you know, diabetic. He waves as he walks his dog past my fence. I grew the shrubs on my side of the wall between our houses so he could see the green fronds waving in the breeze from his kitchen. He keeps an eye on the place when I'm away. I once tried to convince him to shag my mum (don't get like that - she could use it, and he seems awfully single. They compromised, and she now provides him with clean jars for his honey, and he always saves a goodly amount for her. It's still sticky and sweet, and serves both their needs). He hung around for the rest of the evening, to the point where I added a gluten-free vego pizza when I put in a delivery order. 

It occurred to me as the three of us moved from tipsy, to sozzled, to decently drunk, that this was how I'd want my Last Day On Earth to be. No mourning, no Momentous Occasion, just Normal Connection. Another Day, because tomorrow will just be Another Day, but today we Eat, Drink, and Be Merry. 

He asked me when I was flying out, said that he was working from home on Thursday, offered to run me out to the airport. I was just going to call in an Uber; how could I decline? 

It occurred to me that I've been creating a circumstance which I call "Choose Your Own Catharsis". Rather than creating an Event or Occasion, I've been mostly letting people create the experience they want; their own personal closure however is meaningful to them, albeit with a little guidance. 

I spent my Last Friday with Ricky - one of our DNAD nights out for dinner, then laying out on a picnic blanket on the river at the same spot I wrote from previously ("And now for something completely different..." Sun, 20 Nov 2022, 17:38). I'm spending my First Friday with you; I joked about this week being "bookended by Raven-haired beauties" (I apologise for nothing). 

I've alluded previously to burning this motherfucker to the ground and walking away with my way lit by the fires of burning bridges, but it seems better somehow, more poignant, to go gently into that good night. Let the quiet thud of my footsteps behind me echo and create their own thunder, let the vacuum in my wake create a wind. It's not the first time I've departed, ("All of this has happened before,") and it will not be the last ("and all of this will happen again."). 

And on that fading note: 

Regards, 

Peter. 

Re: Resurrection

 (The subject immediately triggered one of my favourite Fear Factory songs... arguably one of my favourite songs in general. I will paste it here since it's 9 minutes long and will probably serve as a reasonable background. I wonder if you have a different one tho...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_OHJxN9C1Y 

Usually seeing an email from you in my notifications is a welcome occasion, one of the small pleasures which brings with it a mixture of glee and relief (because I'm constantly convinced that one day you'll tire of the constant stream of high-volume self-indulgent wank and just flick my address in your 'Ignore' list, and a reply means that day has still not arrived), and like a Limited Edition All-Caramel Mars Bar I can't wait to rip the wrapper off, bite into the gooey centre, and start thinking about how to construct a reply; a rare email with a new subject and no "Re:" in front of it even more so as these are precious indeed. 

Today, however, my first thought was "Oh no... not today..."

Because today has been the last frantic day of packing before the removalists arrive, so instead of ensconcing myself in my front yard with a drink and a cigarette or three I've been in a three-way race between time, my pain threshold, and the supply of boxes, desperately trying to: 

After the months of decluttering. hours of preparation, and a week or two of run-up carving off bite-size chunks, I've got to a point where the boxes keep piling up, but there seems to be no less shit to get through. Like Achilles chasing the tortoise I can never seem to get all the way to the end and just feel like a heel. 

But I needed to stop because everything hurts and have reached the point where I'll either be fine, or fucked, but aren't thinking straight enough to know the difference so have poured myself a concoction I invented recently out of leftover beverages (1 part Rum, 1 part Cold Brew Coffee, 4 parts Coke, served in a pint glass and topped off with ice) and fired up my laptop. 

The last few weeks have been... challenging. People coming out of the woodwork to catch up/reconnect now that word is getting out of my departure, obligations I'm Sure I'll Have Time To Squeeze In, then to cap it off an guy I knew from my undergrad days, a year younger than me no less, passed away on the weekend (long battle with one of those rare, untreatable, genetically-predisposed cancers). Beyond the "forced to confront your own mortality" thing, I personally give no fucks; he was a dick to me every rare time we were in the same room for the last 12 years. It was probably deserved - I'm sure I was a dick in his general direction back in my undergrad days, but still equates to a net-zero no-love-lost. People I *like* were fond of him tho, and to those folk I have a duty of care. 

Combine that with multiple overlapping logistical complexities (EVERYTHING is happening at the last minute regardless of how well I planned it in advance. Like when a fabrication error crept into the final stage of my Art Project and I had to wait an extra 3 days for it to be redone. I managed to get it boxed up and to the courier in time to secure a delivery on Thursday 23rd so that it's there on time, but having a Delivery Risk imposed on the Presentation I'm more than a little invested in was not stress I needed), a rising pain load, and having to tear down everything that's been my life-support for too many years... has been hard. 

This is what you get for wanting things. 

But I guess this is all the labour-pain of my own rebirth (stealing a metaphor to which I have no right, and can only beg indulgence from you who has actually experienced it). All of the best things in my life have been borne of pain, so I accept this as verisimilitude. 

Re: Pink Floyd Reference-a-thon, I came subsequently to regret... or at least reconsider the wisdom of that little escapade. It was fun at the time - I recall having a loosening-of-shoulders, cracking-of-knuckles, challenge-accepted, "Fuck yeah, let's do this!" moment before launching in to see just how far I could take the concept. It was FUN; I often feel that you're actively encouraging me to... not so much push towards greater heights of Peak-Pete so much as cut myself loose from the constraints which stop me being All-Pete-All-The-Time (The Pete-ularity?). Every time I think "Oh no, I've gone too far," the replies I receive remind me of Jen clapping gleefully whilst Beckett phasers her friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BROBQeUk7sg 

But... in my subsequent reflection I found myself thinking "Wait... did I ruin the game? Did I smash it so hard I stole all the points and left nothing on the board to play? Did I go Too Intense again??" 

The topic of 'intensity' came up in a conversation I had with The Big Bossman (Bosslady's Boss) back in September. He told me during a phone call that I was "possibly the most intense person [he'd] ever met... and [he'd] negotiated with terrorists." 

OK, yes, I was madly fucking flattered by that, I'll freely admit it. It was nonetheless problematic because I HADN'T BEEN TRYING, NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?? I probed him on that in an email, and the reply he sent was: 

"As for intense. Let’s try a different phrase focused ultra-high pressure jet stream. There is a concentration of knowledge and experience that you bring to bear, and you are very keen to share it because sharing is acceptance, sharing grants self-value, a sense of purpose. There was a time I was very much like that. But do you know what others see….a pressure wave designed to overwhelm, undermine and subdue.  Nothing stands before the tornado. Not at all what you wanted right?"

The first thought I had when I read what was: 

(Which dovetails interestingly with the name my Chinese friend gave me long ago: 雷风.)

With that itching in the back of my mind I couldn't help but wonder whether in my kitten-like enthusiasm, the perceived encouragement to eschew restraint, and the novelty of playing with an equal, I'd gone and done that here. Whether or not that is the case, I apologise regardless; even if you've derived enjoyment from the performer/spectator paradigm, I'd prefer not to preclude the possibility of your participation. I very much look forward to being nattered at, and having the silence filled by something other than the sound of my own voice. We are, I propose, on the precipice of a new potential, precipitated by pending proximity, preceded by our prodigious pasts, and progressing towards a portentous present; I perceive the opportunity presented as a gift. 

I am, I have been told, a Collector. I accumulate in my orbit people of significance; those who are insubstantial are simply ejected. You have such gravity that over considerable distance it's caused a shift in my own vector, consequently the only conclusion I can conceive is that you must therefore matter. 

On Thu, 16 Mar 2023 at 11:16, Becky wrote:

I’m getting in the spirit of Easter early after being hastily placed in a tomb of resource deprivation, and your role as my apostle Peter (you were by namesake born for this very moment), is to bear witness to my resurrection.

 

 

I imagine writing an email using Floyd references is a difficult bar to respond to in kind, but a Floyd-inspired Wi-Fi network, is impossible (mine is accessed denied, but on a further down street is the delightful ‘we can hear you having sex’, always worth a snicker when it pops up as I drive by.

 

When you wrote to me about Ricky, I was perched on the lounge and captivated by your sense of gratitude and loss, and in an entirely funked out mood, I stared off into the distance unaware of what was about to transpire at work and ctrl-alt-del-end-all-active-tasks any intention I had of engaging in my own life (including replying to the only friend whoever wrote me like I mattered).

 

So, 1 week out from the day of the landing, and whack another sleep on there and I can natter away to fill the place of self-doubt that has grown in place of a decent reply to you. Which in actual fact was somewhat counter-balanced by the curiosity that in my silence I somehow still attracted from you a time to catch up and an invitation to an actual grown-up event. On reflection, this was probably the potential start of the aforementioned resurrection (and for which I am truly gratified).