Microserfs

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.

MONDAY

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I felt really sad for the panic buttons, because panic seems like such an outdated, corny reaction to all of the change in the world.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.

TUESDAY

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.

WEDNESDAY

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

* * *