Ultrasparky

What in god’s name is going on here? Am I really using about 8 to 9 gigs of bandwidth a month at this point? that’s insane. Why do you people bother? Am I really that fascinating? Doubt it. Sheesh!

No, don’t get me wrong. I’m flattered and honored and amazed that I get that much traffic. I never check my stats, so it’s always a surprise to find out that people actually think that’s it’s worthwhile to stop in here from time to time. I guess I’m a little perplexed again, because this is the kind of existential blog angst that seems to happen to all of us periodically about why I do this. It costs me hundreds of dollars a year, it makes me feel obligated to perform whether or not I want to do so, it often sucks time away from other work I’d like to do, it makes me deal with web-site design, which is something I don’t really enjoy much at all.

So what’s in it for me? Why has this site turned out to be the most substantial thing I’ve worked on for these past six years or so? For that matter, why has this turned out to be the only personal endeavor I’ve ever stuck with for so long? I suppose there’s a lot of answers, and not all of them arty and altruistic. (Remember, this is called UltraSparky, a carefully thought out conceit to counter any criticism about whether or not it should be about anything but me, me, me!)

I suppose it’s the people behind those eight or nine gigs a month: the friends I’ve made and keep making (and the social obligations/pleasures that go along with them), the opportunities I’ve had to participate in (and maybe even influence and inspire) the development of a form of democratic media that I really believe in, the people who come here and add their own thoughts to the mix and make this really participatory, the people who care about me who come here to make sure I’m still ticking when I’m too caught up in one damn thing or another to keep in touch regularly. (By the way, I’m awfully happy and doing very well these days, thanks.) I suppose you’re the reason I do it. You make me engage with the world on some level every day, rather than just putter away on my own.

Thanks, ya bastards. But pardon the slimmed-down redesign. Engagements are expensive.

“I’m so tired of being good.”

So laments poor Allison in John Waters‘ Cry-Baby, the story of a repressed good girl who yearns for the fast life in the arms of a hot, hot juvenile delinquent with a sensitive soul. Allison, I have always understood your pain.

I am, without a doubt, the biggest goody-two-shoes you know. Don’t drink, don’t smoke (what do I do?). Smart, polite, reliable, responsible, diligent. And so self-conscious about being seen as anything but such a goody two-shoes, completely exasperated. Being most of these things comes comes pretty easily, but I hate the pressure to live up to the reputation I’ve built for myself. I’ve always hated it so much, in fact, that when I can’t live up to it, I fail in a rather spectacular fashion — always the overachiever. Yes, I have a secret life as a lazy, messy, self-indulgent fuck-up.

The little things never bugged me that much: they add character, make me more human. I’m a little slobby around the house, I’m a little bad with deadlines, I don’t return phone calls right away. No trouble, right? Well, that’s just a little steam being let out of the pressure cooker. I am so much more irresponsible than I let on. I let things fall apart left and right, as long as I can keep up appearances. My credit and my finances are a disaster. I have let people take enormous advantage of me just because I didn’t want to make a fuss. I have been so much sluttier than I have ever let people know, and the truth is that I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I always thougth I would. The fact that there have been massive repercussions from the few times I’ve truly thrown caution to the wind do nothing more than make me feel even greater pressure to hold myself to standards that usually feel impossible.

I’m worry about letting people down, of not living up to expectations, of being faulty. And it goes without saying that I probably perceive all these expectations more than anyone around me actually has them. But still, whenever people express surprise that I haven’t been the reliable goody two-shoes they’ve gotten used to, it just winds me up that much tighter. Even when people actually don’t give a crap, I react as if they do. I’m so uptight you could pop me.

Not that I haven’t popped already. You’ve been following along lately, right? What I’m trying to do now is find balance, to own up to my own shortcomings, to embrace my inner bad boy and realize that I can let go of the stupid stuff and then maybe stop dropping the ball so often when it really counts. I’m allowed to indulge myself, I’m allowed to slack off, I’m allowed to be weak. I’m human, duh. What a boob I’ve been. It’s time to just relax a little once and for all, more often and less self-consciously. After thirty years of being the best little boy in the world, though, it’ll be interesting to see how well I can integrate a little everyday delinquency.

Astronomers don’t expect to really see some of the things they look for. Instead, they have to reach conclusions from indirect observation to find things like distant planets or dark matter. They have to observe visible objects like stars and see how their views of these objects change as they are affected by the presence of the things they can’t see directly. Changes in light levels or color, properties that can be seen and recorded and measured, can be caused by the gravitational pull of these other, unseen objects as they pull the light source in one direction or another, or as their gravitational pull focuses the light like a lens, revealing sources of light that were otherwise too dim to notice.

Which is to say, you don’t always have to see something directly to know it’s there. You can see how things change around that thing — how they directly respond to its presence — and the thing itself is revealed by these ripples in its environment. And then there it is, no secret at all.