Microserfs

I said, "I think nerds secretly dream of speaking to machines - of asking them, 'What do you think and feel - do you feel like me ?'"

Michael asked me, "Do you think humanoids - people - will ever design a machine that can pray? Do we pray to machines or through them? How do we use machines to achieve our deepest needs?"

I said I hope we do. He wondered out loud, "What would R2D2 say to me if R2D2 could speak?"

* * *

My brain is built of paths and slides and ladders and lasers and I have invited all of you to enter its pavilion. My brain, as you enter, will smell of tangerines and brand-new running shoes.

HELLO

My name is:

UNIX

Friend

or

Foe?

* * *

I went out shopping for memory this afternoon with Todd and Karla. I had to get a strip of 27512 EPROMs - at Fry's, the nerd superstore on El Camino Real near Page Mill Road. I had to grovel to Ethan for the petty cash; so degrading.

The Fry's chain completely taps into MSE: Male Shopping Energy. This is to say that most guys have about 73 calories of shopping energy, and once these calories are gone, they're gone for the day - if not the week - and can't be regenerated simply by having an Orange Julius at the Food Fair. Therefore, to get guys to shop, a store has to eat up all of their MSE calories in one crack-like burst. Thus, Fry's concentrates only on male-specific consumables inside their cavernous shopping arena, aisles replete with dandruff, bad outfits, and nerdacious mutterings full of buried Hobbit references.

* * *

Near the EPROM shelves, Karla, Todd, and I were marveling at the pyramids of Hostess products, the miles of computing magazines, the cascade of nerdiana lifestyle accessories: telecom wiring supplies, clips, pornography, razors, Doritos, chemicals for etching boards, and all the components of the intangible Rube Goldberg machines that lie just beneath the Stealth black plastic exterior of the latest $1,299.99 gizmo. The only thing they don't have is backrubs. Karla tried to find tampons and failed. "Make mental note," she said, speaking into an imaginary Dictaphone machine, "Fry's sells men's but not women's hygiene products."

Shortly after, over near the model train mock-up of the Wild West "Canyon City" was when I suddenly saw this kid who looked just like my dear departed brother Jed. And that's when I, well, freaked out.

I stood frozen, and Karla was saying, "Dan, are you okay?" Then Todd walked by, and looked over toward where I was staring, and blurted out, "Hey, Dan - that kid looks just like the kid in the pictures in your Dad's den."

Karla then understood, and moved to stand in front of me, and Todd said, "Uh oh . . ." and headed off to the CD player aisle. Karla said, "Dan, come on. Let's go."

But I said, "That's him, Karla. I'm okay. But look at him. That's what he looked like."

We followed this doppel-Jed around, but it felt too weird stalking some one, so we stopped ourselves. I forgot my EPROMs, and we went and sat on a parking island outside.

Todd came out and said, "Sorry about that."

I said it didn't matter, but you know what Todd said? He said, "I think it does matter. And I do care. So can you please tell me? Sometimes I think you underestimate me, Underwood. So just give me a chance, okay?"

So we went to The Good Earth for turkey burgers and Smoothies (Todd's gym food) and I explained Jed to Todd. I think I do underestimate people. I don't know why I keep these things cramped up inside me. And I think Todd is a friend to call me on it.

* * *

Afterward I quietly went into Dad's den, closed the door behind me, and looked at Jed's old photo, in an oval frame, lost amid Dad's knicks and knacks. There he was as he always will be, slightly yellowed, forever twelve and forever smarter than me.

I guess I feel dumb in the same way Karla feels dumb. Except Karla really is smart compared to her family, and I really am dumb - compared to Jed. He wrote such lovely things when he was here - stories about air pilots working with scientists fighting to protect Earth from being stolen.

Imaginative.

You just can't compete with the dead. It would be easier if I had another brother or a sister, but I was born after the Pill.

Anyway, this is all to say I went into the worst head space all afternoon, as though I'd taken eleven of those cold tablets containing both an upper and a downer to cancel out the mutual side effects. So I merely felt buzzed. Just like after too much coding.

* * *

Abe's e-mail is getting more frequent and more personal. I think he's losing it up at Microsoft. He doesn't like his new roommates and would seem to be missing us.

The 2 new roomates are both engaged to partner units and don't want to hang out. They're NEVER here.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with my not having a life. So many people no longer have lives that you raeally have to wonder if some new mode of existence is being created which is going to become so huge that it is no longer on the moral scale - simply the way people ARE.