Now both my boyfriend and I are out of comission. I feel so terrible for the poor kid. He came in on his break from work limping and told me that he had slid a palette jack with boxes of 3 liter bottles of soda (about a ton) over his foot. We had to spend his entire break soaking, cleaning, bandaging and pampering his poor foot so that he could go back to work, and he only got to eat a carrot and some soy milk. We are pretty certain it isn't broken, but he doesn't have health insurance at all and x-rays are very expensive. I would go into a Confederacy of Dunces-esque tirade about cruel Fortuna (certainly this week it would be true), but I don't want to squander the blessings that we do have being complaintative and bringing down the hand of fate again (not that I believe in any of that rubbish).

Things to be thankful for:
We have an apartment.
None of the bills are late.
We both have families who are willing to help us out if things get really tough.
We have enough money to eat.
Josh has a job.
I have a job interview.
Josh is cute and loves me very much.

I feel really bad for letting him go back to work. Please, Fortuna, spare us!

A friend of mine, Eugene, wrote a response to my little essay about aesthetics, and I thought I would post it, and our conversation about it, here. I also let him use html similar to mine until he can make a nice template for himself, so if you go to his site and notice the similarity, that is why.

"The car is on fire and there's no driver at the wheel.

I was reading (my essay) and I felt compelled to write a counter-response. The idea I perceived the author was trying to bring across was that our modern representations are dull and lifeless, that we need more options to express our individuality. The author also gives a notion that our commercialism has somehow reduced our creative capacities.

I don't believe that I buy the notion that our commercial centers are inherently repulsive. There is some beauty in the labyrinthine commerce of the city. Scurrying ants going to and fro, busily hurrying to their next order of business. The sounds are a musical of the modern industrial age. The advertisments are the ringleaders and magicians of the circus, brightly and subtly directing traffic to the next stop in the chain. The smells, although I admit they can be repulsive, add an atmosphere unique to this brand of life, not unlike the distinct smell of the forest or the void of the desert. Any place that can bring this many individuals together in one ritual is almost religious.

The point that "long term" buildings in this country only last ten to twenty years is just another amazing facet of the modern American city. The city is always changing, growing, evolving so to speak. If we are thinking of American cities, this is merely a representation of the country as a whole. The United States is such a young country. Realize that this country is many times younger than the old countries people have a habit of romanticizing. Has there really been a time in American history where the country has had the same national identity for more than twenty years?

All this gives us so many options to how we want to live our days. Yet, I think that deep down, human nature wants something that doesn't change, something that you know you can always go back to. It gives a sense of security for such a unknown world. What better place to do this than your home? That's why people don't like it when you paint your house purple when everybody else's is gray. Don't rock the boat. There is nothing wrong with this. It is just to have one thing where you know you don't have to choose between diet and regular, light and dark, red or green, etc. To know for a fact that your house is that particular shade of gray, with a trimmed lawn containing three simple lawn ornaments, and that takes five steps to get to the door has its own quaint appeal.

The author asked her boyfriend if he saw anything beautiful that was manmade while driving through the city. The answer is the city itself, a monument to humanity itself. Of course, the boyfriend could've said, "You're beautiful and you're man made," and scored five to ten instant brownie points. I wonder what his response was."

- Eugene Chavez

Okay, so then, while chatting, I felt itchy on a couple of points and we got to talking. I can't say that I adressed his points very well, but I think my thesis is clear, and his, definately more solid.

Goldfrappian: I disagree on 2 points: 1. That impressive orchestration is just that, impressive, not beautiful. I think I gave a nod to the engineer's sympathies in another response I got to that one (from another Techie!) 2.Cities don't evolve, they rot. Sections of the city just get forgotten and we build something new. They fall apart. The old sections are only improved upon if we are later bound by some anti-sprawl legislation and are forced to move back and evolve - these are usually "City Beautification" projects. An acknowledged move toward the aesthetic.

CapLunchmeat: I think that's the point, the beauty of desolation. Evolution is inherently destructive.

Goldfrappian: Oh, and 3. Man can not improve upon nature. Sorry, strong opinion, but the guy who said it first established our national park system which gave me the first opportunity to see that he was right. There is no comparison between the Rocky Mountain National Park and the town of Estes Park that flanks it.

CapLunchmeat: I don't think you can really compare the two. Each has it's own charms.

CapLunchmeat: If man cannot improve upon nature, what's the point of artistic expression?

Goldfrappian: There are two desolations at work here. A desolation that is teeming with natural life and something in an obvious and efficient cycle, and the desolation of a run-down shanty town that has paved over most of the life that once existed there and now shares the air only with toxins and dust. Artistic expression is our most noble effort to reflect upon and attempt to create in some other form, our interpretation of the universe. Look at realism from the eighteenth century versus the city-streets photorealism of today. We are changing our universe so that it becomes a reflection of (not exclusively the best) ourselves - then, I believe, our art suffers. Even Georgia O'Keefe's city scapes convey that message - that humanity reflecting on its own creation (which can be very beautiful) is rarely as beautiful as humanity reflecting on nature.

CapLunchmeat: The interpretation of beauty and a comparison from the expressions found in nature versus those that are man-made are pointless. You cannot provide an explanation to why one is better than the other. A few centuries ago, man said that things are drawn to this world by the hand of God. Now, we say it's gravity. One point is proven by faith, the other by some equation. Yet, they are still the same grasping representations of an unseen force. One is not any better than the other.

Goldfrappian: And I didn't reply to the statement that "evolution is inherently destructive." I guess I don't quite understand how. Given, destruction is one of its most effective tools - weed out the less equiped and create a more efficient population, but a very great creativity is at the base of that, infinite recombinations. I really don't know quite how to respond to that point. And as to your last statement, I would say that you are right, that is something I addressed in the essay, the experience of beauty is housed in interpretation and the individual. I suggest you live in Albuquerque awhile, however. ;-)

CapLunchmeat: Destruction is how things get done. To break something, tear it apart, you force everything else to adapt to it. If things stayed the same, things would get dull quickly. And as to living in Albuquerque, I've lived in a small town for so long that I would probably welcome the change. I think I could write better if I had someone to talk to that didn't have such a tech school mentality. I also stick out my tongue at you because I want to introduce something out of the ordinary. :-P

CapLunchmeat: Even though sometimes my moronic comrades introduce ridiculous concepts that I tend to vehemetly oppose. The two that I remember off hand are: 1. Why you can't take over the world or incite revolution in modern times 2. Why prisons shouldn't have forced labor camps

Goldfrappian: Ha! I agree with the destruction issue... the problems I just enumerated about the city- sprawl, rot- could probably be solved if we did a little more tearing down. Unfortunately, some of the lower economic rungs in our society rely on such rotting places to get by. I know that the city/nature balance has been thrown out of whack, however... the U.N. recommends that at least 2% of a country's land mass be protected wilderness, and the U.S. has just a little above that. Only 2%. I come from a small town, too, not Lubbock, actually, but a little rural place called Wolfforth. Seeing my own city grow and the land around the Colorado interstate become brown and buldozed... to me, it seems obvious that there is something wrong with our pace and our methods. But you are right, it's entirely faith based.

Goldfrappian: Yeah, to number two, I would throw the very heavy Gulag Archipelago at them.

CapLunchmeat: It's rather interesting to see us argue these things. I can usually get the side of the cafeteria we're in to give us troubled stares as I almost yell in protest of their idiotic ideas. It's really quite beautiful, in a man made sort of way. I guess that people here are more concerned with their next homework assignment than to hold an interesting debate.

Goldfrappian: Yeah. You won't have that problem in Albuquerque. There's all sorts of debate going on up in he-aw.

I think that I am definately going to have to take an aesthetics class and write more about this.