Microserfs

MONDAY

Susan told us today what our characters and powers would be if we were on Star Trek:

Michael:

Disembodied neocortex afloat inside a tank of nutrient-bearing solution; has ability to see back and forth in time; communicates via LEDs and a synchronized swim team of hybridized dolphins living in a satellite-linked inlet on the Goa Coast.

Todd:

Repairer of broken machines; has tools instead of fingers; regulation hunk required by TV network to stimulate sales of tie-in merchandise; able to telepathically determine sexual coefficient of alien beings; skin can turn to gold by beaming himself to the planet TanFastic.

Karla:

Crew Biologist; able to camouflage feeling with scientific theories; superior intelligence allows for dominance over all males or spore-bearing entities.

Me:

Token earthling; prey to foibles and pratfalls of all humanity (thanks Susan).

Bug:

Feathered creature picked up in sympathy from a collapsing Throm Nebula; most likely to say uncontrolled, angry things about fellow cast and crew members to Entertainment Tonight years after the series ends up in syndication … lack of Screen Actors Guild residuals plus an addiction to cosmetic surgery will provide an impetus.

Susan herself:

Priestess of the Right Lobe; erotic female interest demanded by TV networks; will devour males if overly excited; designs castles while sleepwalking; flawless plastic skin; thighs conceal bevatron guns.

Dusty:

Bionic creature from a destroyed Valley planet: disciplinarian; feeds on ? rays; arms contain snakes that will fight her wars.

Ethan:

Bearer of the Dark Force; can transmute feces into uranium; owns hyperspace cruiser that can vanish and reappear at any moment across time, space, and money.

Abe:

Wise hermit cast adrift on asteroid for thousands of years; has developed odd code languages for everyday actions; lonely but not bitter: his heart is cryogenically frozen, and he must search the universe pursuing the Thawer.

Went to the gym for the first time today and my body feels like an East German Trabant car running on linseed oil crashing into a stack of burning televisions. The pain!

Susan’s going psycho over an asthmatic Detroit car artist named Emmett who Michael brought in to do drawings and storyboards. (“We run a very disciplined little software shop,” says Ethan. “Detroit really knows how to crack the whip!”)

I think it would be a very scary thing at this point in Susan’s sexual radicalization to be the subject of her infatuation. Good luck, Emmett.

Oh — Emmett’s last name is—Couch—isn’t that a hoot! And his big personal beef is Japanese animation. He says that SEGA and Nintendo are responsible for the “subtle but massive Hello- Kittification of North American animation. You can kiss our Hanna-Barbera heritage good-bye.” How can anybody take this so seriously?

Emmett has 4,000 manga comics from Japan. They’re so violent and dirty! The characters all look as if they’re saying unbelievably important things — talking to God and the Wizard of the Universe — but when you translate them, all they’re really doing is making belching noises. Susan has discovered in these manga a rich source of fashion ideas.

The more we realize our Lenin jokes rankle Todd, the more the Lenin jokes grow out of control. Even Mom got into the act and made “Lenin’s Face” cookies, dropping them into the office on her way to work. We told Todd to close his eyes and touch them and describe their texture—“kind of leathery — kind of dry — kind of … chewy — kind of like …” (opens his eyes). Ethan: “An embalmed syphilitic tyrant?”

“You assholes! Oh, sorry, Mrs. Underwood.

I learned a new expression today: “protein window.” Todd told it to me.

Apparently, after you bodybuild, you have a two-hour time window in which your body can suck up amino acids. This is your protein window. I was talking to him and he said, “Man, I’d like to talk some more, but my protein window is closing,” and he ran off to the kitchen and ate a chicken. What a decade this is.

I forgot to eat while my protein window was open. Maybe that’s why I’m in pain.

Abe mail:

In the future all planets will have roman numerals after their names and have one or two sylable names that sound like Dupont carpet material from 1966… Norlon IV … Erthrea IK … Gil II

Bug has joined a “Lego Bobsledding Team” and has plummeted to a new nadir of Nerddom. It’s over in Berkeley — they use Mattel Hot Wheels tracks, bet with Monopoly money, have megaphones and everything. Lego trophies, too.

Todd called me “decadent” today — this, after he discussed protein windows! I couldn’t believe it. He said I was decadent because I was eating Lucky Charms. He said they were “symptomatic of a culture in decline — sucrose hysteria, you know.”

I said, “But Todd, Lucky Charms were invented during the Johnson Administration. Society couldn’t have been more anti-decline than it was then. Guns and butter … I can’t believe I’m even talking to you seriously about this. This is silly beyond belief.”

Anyway, that was the seed notion. Karla and I wrote a big list of “decadent cereals” on the office dry-erase wall:

CAP’N CRUNCH:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

a) Colonialist exploiter pursues naive Crunchberry cultures to plunder, b) Drunkenness, torture, and debauchery implicit in long ocean cruises.

SUGAR FROSTED FLAKES:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Silky throated military-industrial complex spokestoad “Tony the Tiger” exploits the need of the undereducated underclass for a paternalistic, Reagan-like figure. A cautionary tale of the perils of not indoctrinating at the creche level.

TRIX:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Well-meaning rabbit, “Trix,” kept in continual state of malnutrition/subservience by dominant children of the parasitic bourgeoisie. “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids” can only be construed as a call to class warfare.

LUCKY CHARMS: Reason this cereal is decadent:

Man with no known adult friends lures children into forest for purpose of nutritional (ideological) seduction. Sprightly twinkle motif on packaging (putatively an allusion to “flavor”) are, in fact, metaphors for soul-deadening sucrose.

RICE KRISPIES:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

Snap, Krackle, and Pop thinly veiled emblems for the Trilateral Commission.

COCOA PUFFS:

Reason this cereal is decadent:

“I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” the demented cackle of Sonny the Cocoa Puffs bird/spokesmuppet, is resonant with the insanity inherent in the needless enslavement of the proletariat.