2 June 2000

So something is happening, something that could be good, and you're trying very hard not to screw it up, and you have these hopes that finally, finally, something you've been waiting for and trying for, for years, could actually happen. And then there's a hitch, and you've seen hitches before, and you know, deep down, that it's not going to happen this time, either. But you still keep trying, hoping maybe this time the hitch won't prove disastrous. But of course it does - maybe not as big a disaster, because you kept working at it and so rather than rolling off the path into the ditch, the apple cart just kindof topples over, to use a metaphor.

My cart's kindof up on two wheels, and everything's moving in slow motion, and I keep watching it and wondering what I could possibly do to make it slide back the other way and just jostle everything around instead of toppling over. But deep down, I know it's inevitable. Thinking that, I've probably already sealed its fate - I've found that if you think something is going to go wrong, it probably will. Not that knowing that makes it any easier to actually, honestly, deep-down believe things are going to go right.

No, no-one reading this knows what I'm talking about. If you think you know, you're almost certainly wrong, so just put it out of your mind and don't worry about it. Heck, a year from now when I come back to re-read this, I probably won't have the slightest idea what I was talking about. And that'll be okay, because I just wanted to get it out of my system so I can stop having imaginary conversations with ghosts.

Our friend Greg, who was in the hospital a few weeks ago and eventually diagnosed with hypoglycemia, is back in the hospital. Or at least he was last night, when KT talked to him. He'd had another seizure, and now the doctors think maybe the hypoglycemia is a symptom of something larger. They were going to do an MRI and a spinal tap last night, so they should know, I guess, in the next few days.

Whatever deities you believe in, whichever faces of the Is appeal to you the most, I'd appreciate it if you'd ask him or them or it to watch out for Greg.

So finally, after something like a month, I finished reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I like Stephenson's writing. His characters are improbable in the extreme, but they're improbable in an believable way, if that makes any sense. The only problem I have with his books is that they tend to end in a big rush - the last couple of chapters start moving faster and faster and finally there's some great huge deus ex machina that comes down and solves everything, and it's usually only tangentially hooked into the storyline.

It would be like I told you this long and involved story about these two bugs and their struggle over a single blade of grass that they both wanted. I'd bring in other bugs, some of whom were just bystanders, some who were planning on supporting one of the bugs only to betray them later... Very involved. And then all at once, just as they were about to rush into a climactic battle, I ended the story by having both bugs scooped up and put in a terrarium. Like that.

A lot of the "cyberpunk" writers do that. William Gibson makes hard left turns at the ends of his books so badly I usually wind up not only feeling unsatisfied but vastly confused. Bruce Sterling does it, too. It seems to be a characteristic of the genre, but I can't figure out why.

Anyway, Cryptonomicon wasn't like that, astonishingly. Oh, there were the usual crowd of supra-normal characters, and an even greater than usual array of coincidinces, but the coincidences were practically the point of the book, so I forgave him that.

And Cryptonomicon was amazingly funny. About every three pages I'd read something that just had me on the floor laughing, usually because of a couple of really over-the-top characters.

And for once, I actually followed the action all the way through to the end. Every step followed more or less logically out of what came before - there was only one move that I'm still not sure where it came from, and I think if I went back and re-read more carefully, I could figure that one out. The problem was, the book just sortof... stopped.

Usually, a book has a climax, and then a sortof breather, where the loose ends get tied up and you get to sort through the aftermath. Cryptonomicon just ended, right at the climax. The good guys won the battle (so to speak - I don't think I'm spoiling anything there) and then... Nothing. It just stops there. Our Hero doesn't even kiss his girlfriend in triumph afterwards. It's like Stephenson wanted to write another hundred pages, but his editor said, "Come on, Neal, it's already nine hundred pages! Just let it go!"

Of course, for all I know, that is what happened. It was a fun book, anyway, and I enjoyed it. But I don't think I'll be re-reading it any time soon.

Word of the Day: folderol - a useless trifle; nonsense

Folderol. Hogwash. Nonsense. Hooey. Drivel. Malarkey. Claptrap. Garbage. Baloney. Twaddle. Gobbledegook. Gibberish. Rubbish. Idiocy. Foolishness. Poppycock. Stupidity. Silliness. Inanity. Folly. Balderdash. Tripe. Bunkum.

Bullshit.