Lebensraum

G. has departed for Germany and I have a job interview tomorrow. I've been supplementing my academic reading with Woolf's Orlando. Still no fresh tea at the house, but maybe that will change soon.

I've been trying to cultivate what I call (to myself) "philosophical domesticity." Domesticity has a bad reputation as being bourgeoisie and boring--much better to be a 21st century beatnik and not clean up your dirty clothes--but the activities that go into maintaining one's living space have tremendous potential as a space in which to express one's values and draw nearer to attaining self-actualization. Granted, not everyone needs or wants this--good for you if you don't. But a house is the perfect place to implement aesthetic ideals or sustainable practices if these things are important to you. They are often impossible to fully realize in a space shared with more than one or two roommates. Of course, domesticity should always be a means, not an end. Space should serve a purpose, not exist for its own sake. That said, I think that many people could benefit from closer attention to their material existence, and its alignment (or non-alignment) with one's social identity.

If that was too stuffy, let me counter it by saying I'll be having a party in the near future if I get this job. Beer! I'll Facebook if it's a go.

Now-Titled Post

The past few weeks have been eventful. Finals, over. I moved into a house, started my summer job, quit it, and quite recently went to a party from which I'm still trying to recover. Three cups of yerba mate while sitting in bed reading didn't do it. Coffee next. I may be waking up all day.

We don't have internet at the house. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it enforce a different lifestyle than the one to which I've grown accustomed. I don't waste as much time looking at dumb things, going to digg, playing, God forbid, flash games--but I'm used to being plugged in. My social life is also inhibited, but the compensatory effect of having one's own place more than makes up for it. If anything, it might improve the blog; I'm thinking of drafting things at home, correcting them, then bringing them to the library to post [edit: yeah right]. That would be easier than just sitting here, trying to think of sentences like I'm doing right now.

Two novels: Murakami's After Dark and The Echo Maker by Richard Powers. I recommend both. In After Dark, Murakami works out of his usual POV. The protagonist (if there is one) isn't another variant on Toru Okada (which I guess was true for Kafka by the Shore as well, so maybe this marks a new trend). I didn't mind the similarities between characters in his earlier novels, but I think he handles the new territory well. I also found After Dark to be a lot more thematically coherent than his other books, though I'm a different reader than I was last year. Maybe being an English major has made me even better at seeing connections where there are none. Oh well: After Dark seems to be an extended meditation on the borders of the self, and on one's ever-renegotiated position within the various networks of power and influence that shape society. Darkness is the condition in which borders become permeable, in which we can grow closer to others or drift away, suffused with nothingness.

This idea of identity, its mutability and dependence on/ existence within others (reminiscent of Hofstadter's view in Le ton beau de Marot and, I hear, I am a Strange Loop) is also present in The Echo Maker, in which neurological disorders are portrayed as explicit manifestations of processes and structures that are already present in normal consciousness. I wonder if Powers's book might be a little longer than it needs to be, and I still haven't fully grasped the significance of his ecological theme (or maybe I have, and forgotten), but I still think it's worth the time. And the cover art is great.

I need to eat lunch now. I'll come back to this later and fix typos. If anyone wants to hang out while I'm still unemployed, please let me know. On the other hand, if you know anywhere that's hiring, feel free to pass that along as well.

[edited 5/29/08; title added, some adverbs eliminated, other changes]

Finals

I don't ever want to have to think again. And I'm not half done.