Microserfs

“They even abused three-letter acronyms,” said Karla, who also decreed that Rhoda Morgenstern would have dated a freeway engineer back in the 1970s. “His name would have been Rex and he would have looked like Jackson Browne and would have known the compressive strength range of Shale, Dolomite, and Quartzite to the nearest p.s.i. ? 10³.”

I am really terrible at remembering three-letter acronyms. It’s a real dead zone in my brain. I still barely can tell you what RAM is. Wherever this part of the brain is located, it’s the same place where I misfile the names and faces of people I meet at parties. I’m so bad at names. I’m realizing that three-letter acronyms are actually words now, and no longer simply acronyms: ram, rom, scuzzy, gooey, see-pee-you…. Words have to start somewhere.

Karla told me about when she was young. About how she remembered “trying to make — no, not make, engineer—Campbell’s Vegetable Soup from scratch — chopping up the carrots and potatoes to resemble machine-cut cubes — getting the exact number of lima beans per can (4).

“I grew up with assembly lines, remember. My favorite cartoon was always the one with the little chipmunks stuck inside the vegetable canning factory. I used to guess at the spices, too. But in the end it never worked because I didn’t use beef stock or MSG.”

Random day. Fed on magazines for a while. Radio. Phone call from Mom, and she talked about traffic.

* * *

Industrial Light & Magic

jump

hit

We're just friends

run

multi-user dungeon

Ziggy Stardust

Sky Tel paging

FORTRAN

IKEA

Wells Fargo

Safeway

hummingbird

I am an empath

4x4

Kung Fu

Death Star

platform

oligarchy

Highway 92

Deuteronomy

Staples

Pearle Express

Kraft singles

cordless

brain ded

Silo

an executive lifestyle

Maybelline

implicator

Insert

Font

Format

Tools

SATURDAY

Oh God.

I knew I’d do something. Karla’s on the warpath because I forgot our one-month anniversary. Doh! She gave me until bedtime tonight to remember, but I still forgot, so now she’s not speaking to me. I tried to tell her that time isn’t necessarily linear, that it flows in odd clumps and bundles and clots. “Well, err, um—what exactly is a month, Karla? Ha Ha ha.”

“I don’t know about you, Dan,” she interrupted, “but I programmed my desktop calendar to remind me. Good night.” [Insert one frosty glare here. A bored yawn; a bedroom door nudged closed with little baby toes.]

It’s nice to see this romantic side to Karla’s personality — an unexpected bonus — but still, nobody likes THE COUCH. And so now after weeks of blissful insomnia-free sleep, I’m yet again PowerBooking my daily diaries here on the acid green couch in a big big way.

Comely superstar Cher hawks cosmetics on late-nite TV. Mishka is also spending tonight in the living room and she is making foul smells indeed. At least it’s raining out — buckets — and the weird too-hot summer is over.

Tomorrow I will program my desktop computer to remind me of every one of our anniversaries, monthly or otherwise, until the year 2050.

Actually, we all have so much free time now. Karla, Todd, Bug, and I sit around awaiting our next product group assignment, feeling deflated and just plain exhausted. We forget about clock-and calendar-type time completely.

Today, while raking the front lawn, Todd said, “Wouldn’t it be scary if our internal clocks weren’t set to the rhythms of waves and sunrise — or even the industrial whistle toot — but to product cycles, instead?”

We got nostalgic about the old days, back when September meant the unveiling of new car models and TV shows. Now, carmakers and TV people put them out whenever. Not the same.

Yes, Karla moved in a month ago. We’re an item.

Todd, Abe, and I lugged her “ownables” from her geek house down the street up to our own geek house at the top of the cul-de-sac: futon and frame … cluster o’ computers … U-Frame-It Ansel Adams print … and dumped it all into Michael’s empty room. And then, once she installed herself in our house (“Think of me as a software application“) she announced that she was an expert in (thank you, Lord …) shiatsu massage!

Mom phoned this afternoon. Out of the proverbial blue she said to me, “The house! The soil up in the hills is settling and the roof’s rotting. The door and windows need replacing. I just stand here and feel the money being sucked out of my body. At least we had the foresight to buy it when we did. But all my librarian’s salary goes into the house. The rest goes to Price- Costco.”

Money.

I changed the subject. “What did you have for dinner?”

“Those pre-formed pork by-product patties. And ramen noodles. Like the food you kids eat when you do your coding all-nighters.”

It was a “Listening-Only” call.

“I know, Mom. How’s Dad doing?”