Microserfs

tried to think of the worst seeing-eye breed imaginable and we came up with the idea of the ‘seeing-eye whippet,’ prancing into traffic … isn’t that a riot? Perhaps you could make a video game out of it, like that Pong game that was so much fun that Christmas years ago.”

Mom, like most people her age, will know Pong as their sole video game experience. It’s tragic.

At lunch, Mom preempted all other conversation starts by discussing Michael. “Sometimes I think that Michael is ummm—autistic.” She blushed. “Oh, of course, what I mean to say is — well — have you noticed?”

“Michael’s not like other people,” I said. “He goes off into his own world — for days at a time sometime. A few months ago he locked himself into his office and we had to slide food under his door. And so he stopped eating any food that couldn’t be slipped underneath a door.”

“Oh, so that explains the Kraft cheese slices. Carton-loads.”

Karla, still low energy from the flu, broke in: “You know, Mrs. Underwood, I think all tech people are slightly autistic. Have you ever heard about dyspraxia? Michael is an elective mute.”

“No.”

“Dyspraxia’s like this: say I asked you to give me that newspaper. There’s no reason on earth why you couldn’t. But if you had dyspraxia, then you’d be blocked and you’d just sit there frozen. Dyspraxia is the condition where you become incapable of initiating an action.”

“Then everybody is dyspraxic, dear. It’s called procrastination.”

“Exactly. It’s just that geeks are slightly more so than most people. Autism’s a good way of focusing out the world to exclude everything but the work at hand.”

I added that Michael was also the opposite of a dyspraxic, too. “If he has an idea, he acts on it. But he has to put the idea into action immediately—like this company — or with an elegant strip of code. He’s a blend of the two extremes.”

Karla added, “The doors in Michael’s brain are wide open to certain things, while simultaneously nailed shut to all others. And we must admit, he does get things done. He has no brakes on certain topics. He’s a true techie geek.”

Mom looked askance.

I said, “You can say geeks now, Mom.”

“Yes, well, you geeks are an odd blend of doors and brakes.”

The discussion changed to the (groan) information superhighway. “Do you think libraries are going to become obsolete?” she said stirring her coffee and fearing for her job. “Books?”

Karla lapsed into a discussion of the Dewey decimal system and the Library of Congress cataloging system, which was numbing to say the least. Mom found herself begrudgingly getting very into the discussion of cataloging. Librarians love order, logic, and linearity.

In the end lunch was like a balloon with not enough helium in it to float — not enough helium in it to even puff it up, really. I think the dynamic of Mom and Karla’s relationship has been set. At least they don’t hate each other. Truthfully, I’m a little worried … why is Mom being like this?

Later on, I found myself being the only person working in the office. It was so strange, and I can’t remember the last time this happened. Actually, I wasn’t totally alone: Look and Feel were scurrying about inside their Habitrail. But other than that, I was alone. It was odd to be the only person in the office. I wished I could go to Kinko’s and photocopy myself … be more productive.

Karla found this allergy medicine I’ve been taking and said, “This is what’s been causing your nightmares.” She could be right — I hope she is. I’m going to stop as of today.

THURSDAY

No nightmares last night.

FRIDAY

Again, no nightmares. Problem solved?

Misty came into our work space and barked at Look and Feel. Gerbils really stink. I’ll be glad if we ever get out of this space.

SATURDAY

Karla and I were watching cartoons, and that old Warner Brothers cartoon came on with the frog that’s buried in cement in the 1920s and comes alive and sings and dances, but only in front of one person. Karla looked at it and said, “That’s me around your mother. I sit around and say ‘ribbet’ around her, but I’m the dancing, singing frog around you.”

Everyone is getting a cold and sounds nasal and scary. Todd said, “Man, you don’t want to see the stuff coming out of my nose into the Kleenex. Eggs Benedict.” Thanks, Todd.

Look and Feel had babies! We think there are five, pink and plump, so we’re going to call them Lisa, Jazz, Classic, Point, and Click. We hope they don’t get eaten by their parents. We put raw hamburger into the Habitrail tubes to keep Look and Feel away from “the kids.” The Habitrail is actually rather like Logan’s Run. Imagine gerbils with little 1970s feathered hairdos!

I was up at Ethan’s frighteningly chic house tonight (all those bank cameras) and told him about the other night, when I wished I could go to Kinko’s and photocopy myself. He misunderstood me. I merely wanted to increase my productivity, but he thought I was getting all cosmic and wanted to discuss the universe, and this became a cue for Ethan to commandeer the conversation into his direction, as usual.

Ethan did the “Ethan Thing” and went off on a tangent about himself. He said, “I’ve already photocopied myself!”

He explained: “People tend to assume that as we get older, years naturally start feeling shorter and shorter — that this is ‘nature’s way.’ But this is crap. Maybe what’s really happening is that we have increased the information density of our culture to the point where our perception of time has become all screwy.

“I began noticing long ago that years are beginning to shrink — that a year no longer felt like a year, and that one life was not one life anymore — that “life multiplication” was going to be necessary.

“You never heard about people ‘not having lives’ until about five years ago, just when all of the ‘80s technologies really penetrated our lives.” He listed them off:

“VCRs

tape rentals

PCs

modems

answering machines

touch tone dialing

cellular phones

cordless phones call screening

phone cards

ATMs

fax machines