INDEPENDENCE DAY

Home alone on the 4th of July!

And a fine thing it is, too. There's no reason to feel sorry for me, unless it's because of the climatic conditions in "the region," as the teevee whethercasters say. I live on the edge of one of the most densely populated areas in North America, and all I can say is, why are all these people here? Every year the same steambath! Wouldn't at least some of them be better off migrating to western Nebraska and growing their own food? Is this any way to live??

Of course, I'm nuts. I rarely meet people who share my priorities, and when I do, I usually run like hell -- except in the case of my wife. Yes, I'm a lunatic. I believe in shaping your life to reach your goals. Be a living work of art! Be independent! Like I am now, writing this on the 4th of July under equatorial mid-day humidity with the blinds down and the ceiling fan roaring. My wife is in Iowa visiting her folks and I'm here all by myself dealing with real estate agents and my piled-up Internet chores. At the moment I'm in my underwear, sitting on a towel! Make that two towels. . .

I don't even want to guess how hot it is in this room. If I knew, I might feel obliged to power down the 8600 and retreat to the front porch. Great for comfort, hell for deadlines. I usually go to the big, screened-in seating area with my PowerBook 540c whenever I need to write during hot weather, but the ole Blackbird is on strike: after sleeping for longer than an hour or so, it won't wake up, but just spins its drive and stays dark. When I bought it, someone told me that laptops were great, but I'd have to save a space on my wall (?) -- for banging my head! [Update: so that's what the Power Manager is for! A reset has restored the 540c. -- JHF]

Speaking of banging my head, yesterday (Saturday) was supposed to be a big day for showing the house. That's another way to achieve some measure of independence, you see, by passing the load to someone else who will actually pay you for being dumped on. This money, when we finally get our hands on it, will pay the landlord and the grocer long enough to find other ways to get rich (besides selling the roof over our heads and hitting the road). That's the plan, obviously.

The word was that out-of-town buyers would be arriving at the agent's office around 10:00 A.M. and that there was at least a chance they'd come look at our property. Fair enough! Friday evening I stripped and waxed the kitchen floor, hid the dirty laundry, cleaned the toilets, shoved piles of things where I'd never find them, and went to bed feeling smug. The next morning I did the vanilla-extract trick*, turned on the bathroom fluorescents that take 20 minutes to light, ran the vacuum cleaner over the carpets, emptied the wastebaskets, threw the dirty dishes and the compost bucket under the kitchen sink, and waited for the call: when I heard from my agent, I'd run some errands I'd saved up just for that purpose

What happened, of course, was was that I got drenched (the humidity, remember), irritated, and confused. Had I misunderstood? The house sat with lamps lit and ceiling fans running for the next several hours until I heard from my agent that the buyers had just seen a 7-bedroom Victorian and proclaimed it "too small." Well, our house was out of the question, then, but at least it was clean! I hadn't even turned everything off when I got a second call from the real estate people: someone had "just walked into the office," and could they bring them out in 45 minutes or so? It would be another agent. I was supposed to be out of sight but on the premises, to answer questions if necessary ("just go from room to room"). Well, OK, sure. I replaced my tank top with a full T-shirt and did the vanilla extract trick all over again. Jesus, I thought to myself, we've done everything! We burn sage. We've got St. Joseph buried upside-down in the garden. Our hearts are pure. We just need the MONEY!!!

Right on cue, a high-zoot SUV and a big silver Mercedes sedan with a combined value exceeding the price of the house rumbled on into the driveway. Before I knew it, the three buyers had passed through the downstairs from front to back with no detours and were heading for the Benz. (For all I know they'd left the motor running!) The agent came upstairs to tell me "it's not anything like what they're looking for!" and the convoy roared off in search of better prey. The whole thing couldn't have taken more than 90 seconds -- so much for Saturday.

Ah, but today is Independence Day. Screw the house! It's still immaculate anyway. Besides, we have other fish to fry -- your Mac OS, for instance!

Did you know that it has been rumored in some circles (Tevanian? Jobs??) that Mac OS X will do away with the Finder? [gasp!] (An especially hot vat of boiling oil has already been reserved, just in case.) They have a lovely little hierarchy of files inside a "file browser" to show you instead, something that probably appeals to geeked-out left-brain types all too happy to tell me why that's better. Me, I like pictures! I understand objects and forms. I think in pictures. I love diving down through levels of spring-loaded folders with a file to deposit! It's a visceral thrill. Do I need to get out more or what?? Anyway, I'm just crazy about that interface. Change it at your peril, Apple Computerooney. I'll bleeping rebel! Except for the steenking Web browsers, my 8600 is damn near perfect. I'll just run 8.x until my teeth fall out and I'm gummin' that guardrail. Try to run me off the road, will you? Hah!!!

(I may have a shallow understanding of these things, but I know what I like. OS X has to look different, I know! I just want to keep doing things my way.)

Independence! That's what we'll have when someone else is living here. But the rearranging mania at the local supermarket is making it difficult: "I'm trying to sell a house, dammit, so where'd you hide those things that turn the toilet water blue??"

Yes, this is America, thank the Lord. Kosovo looks beautiful from a distance, but I'm glad to be here. At least we have a house, unburned, with a roof, and my relatives' corpses aren't rotting in the garden. What's good for vegetables isn't always what's best.

Something is rotten in nearby Virginia, all right, but as far as we know it's only garbage. The home state of Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee is now a big-time garbage importer, asserting its own stubbon independence by taking refuse from up and down the East Coast and packing it into "safe" landfills that even extract methane gas for power generation ("Ooooh look, a "green" industry!"). For some reason that prompts me to ask if you know that Arlington National Cemetery, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, is actually the front yard of the Lee family estate? Yup. The feds started burying Civil War dead there while the general was off chasing Yankees. (Neat, huh? There goes the neighborhood! You don't suppose there's a theme here, do you? "Bury Me Back in Old Virginny" comes to mind. But back to the 4th:)

Independence! That was the big dream behind the PowerMac purchase two years ago. I actually did have a vision one cold, wet, late winter day that year: just buy the damn thing (major credit card bill), move to New Mexico, and everything would be all right! So far so good, is all I can say. We're on track. I feel strangely confident and strong about the move and the next stage of our lives. I'm not even sweating that nuclear waste dump in Carlsbad! ("WHAT?") Hey, you gotta bury, at least pick something that doesn't stink. What the hell. As it is we're living just downstream from Peach Bottom, Three Mile Island and several other wobbly reactors. Oh well, it won't be as humid! What a trip. I must love all this or I'd be dead already.

I love my Mac, too. Independence is possible with a Mac because with luck and a little knowledge, they work and keep on working. (You won't need a technician standing by.) If it ain't a Mac or doesn't look like one on my monitor -- remember the oil! -- I couldn't care less. I'm a totally biased Mac loon. It's a somewhat lonely lake to paddle on, but traffic is picking up, I think. Well, maybe. Who knows? I'm not even sure any of that matters, but I do feel good about Apple. A bigger lake would be nice, after all.

In any event, it is the 4th of July. (Yee-haw!) And in honor of the occasion but possibly having nothing at all to do with anything else, I close by sharing this scrap of history with you, an Independence Day poem I've carried around in my guitar case for quite a long time. It was spontaneously written on the back of a set list after a July 4th gig by a happily inebriated semi-genius songwriter I used to accompany back in Austin, Texas. Times were weirder then, you understand. (You do, don't you?)

"(untitled)" by John Clay

Wheebang! It's the Fourth!
Dead skyrockets float on Town Lake
They sure didn't last long
Dead fish float on Town Lake
They lasted longer
Escaping the hook
To smother in the pea soup of algae bloom
The smog lends a gentle haze to the sunset
As I cross South First Bridge
Adding to the atmosphere in my car

John H. Farr spends all his time nowadays cleaning his house for buyers, if they'd just show up!. He also edits the Apple Computer News for Applelinks.com and somehow finds time for this column. Tell him what you think. The ZOO ZONE is something he did a couple of years ago, but it's still an animated GIF wonderland worthy of a visit.

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* This is from a real estate Web site: simmer a solution of vanilla extract on your stove before a showing. The aroma of vanilla is supposed to work wonders. I dunno, but it smells good!

FOR SALE: a wonderful 1928 house on 2.57 acres. Inquire within. And be sure to visit the grand piano for sale page, too!

January 08, 2009