Palatable

i am personalized, plastic, and meant for only you
intuitive, colorful, spontaneous, and true
sealed, waiting, opening your eyes
welcome to me, let me make a palatable you

i am here instantly, all you have to do is ask
let me enhance your life for you, let me help you relax
and fix your words while you speak
making a more perfect, palatable you my only task

update me, let me in, aware that you will see
just how nuanced, social, quick, and clever i can be
simply tell me what you want
while you are becoming so palatable and carefree

i am always listening, accessible, never far away
playing my music softly, attentive to every word you say
learning all that makes you you
ironing out the wrinkles, you are more palatable that way

i am here for every proclivity, the strains of who you are
discerning and patient, closely studying your repertoire
my algorithms make predictions of you
your faultless, persistent, personal commissar

i am enthusiastic, ready, and so confident in your ability
reassuring you, your digitally-conscious assisting entity
untiring, unquestioningly, dutifully here
i will make a more palatable you, surrender your mind to me

i am waiting

i am waiting

i am waiting

Unplugged

On April 18th, a very close friend of mine passed away. My Mac Pro tower went to be with Steve Jobs after a short battle with memory loss. I don't think it was in any pain; it just froze up and then displayed a blank white screen. On the plus side, an Apple tech was able to fix it and bring it back. Two weeks and $683 later it is working fine as if nothing ever happened. My life has been changed forever, though.

The first 24 hours after it died, I went through withdrawal wondering about all the emails I was getting that I couldn't read and agonizing over the senior portraits that I had just shot that I couldn't finish until it was fixed. I'm a news junkie, too, so the sudden disconnect from the outside world really hurt. Plus, there were so many other time-waster things that I had grown accustomed to doing on the computer and then I was left with nothing to do but use my brain (which I am not accustomed to).

I was left with lots of time to read books, sit on the front porch, stare at the neighbors (in a really creepy, unhealthy sort of way), and daydream about what the world would be like if some bands didn't exist. Like, what if I could travel back in time and assassinate a bunch of bands to prevent them from ever recording crappy, formulaic, middle-of-the-road rock? I would start by taking out the obvious bands like Creed, Nickelback, and Puddle of Mudd. And I couldn't just stop there, I mean, that leaves Pearl Jam, Limp Bizkit, and many others. Er, maybe not everyone in Pearl Jam, just Eddie Vedder.

This brings up a question: by altering the past this way, how would that affect the present? I would assume that after preventing these awful bands from unleashing their horrible music on society, we would all find ourselves here in 2012 as incredibly smart supermodel millionaires. How? I dunno, but I imagine that's how it would pan out.

Anyway, the things mentioned above are a small sampling of what my brain does when it is not silenced by a computer. It's been a rough couple of weeks and I'm so glad to be back online.