innocence_lost past i've been feeling a pivot point coming for years. looking at old lecture notes about theory being the link between culture/politics and our material world, how we see the world as the hinge in how we constantly remake it. i don't know if the students thought it was ivory tower posturing, trying to make the abstract concrete (i mean it was, but that doesn't mean it wasn't true at the same time). but i've been watching different observers passing the threshold to accept that innocence has been lost, that the stories of the past we told ourselves were wrong and more importantly the stories of today were at best partial and at worst broken mirrors, and maybe most important of all how we think ourselves into the future is in full debate as we grapple with its many face spectre. the true test will be in how we, in the days weeks months years to come, move from realizing innocence is gone to rethinking those (perhaps naive) times of lost_innocence that came before the shattered_now. 220212 ... epitome of incomprehensibility If innocence = opposite of guilt, the spring of 2012 is what I think of. At least, that's when "shit got real" - except I mean the opposite, that reality became an idea. And that idea was my guilt, and it wasn't just an idea. 220213 ... e_o_i Okay, I only saw that "guilt" was on the yesterday list after I wrote this. Must be in the stars, which are maybe just the points of light in anything. (Light for illumination and activity, not necessarily positivity.) 220213 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Whereby it is resolved: don't read old diaries with the theme of "person I love going to Europe and never talking to me again" when you're in a mood to worry about that happening again. But that was yesterday, and this is today. And today I talked to The One Who Didn't Get Away over Whereby. The bulk of our conversation was me going on a virtual tour of part of his Oxford-adjacent neighbourhood, me sharing my Google-Street-View screen while he went, "Oh yes, there's a pub over there...this is the part of the bridge that goes over the Thames..." Pressing on an arrow allowed me to fly forward several strides at once. It felt like a dream. It was always summer, but the amount of daylight changed randomly, as did the sharpness of the shadows. I also said, enthusiastically, "You have to listen to Fields of Verdun, because that's Our Song!" I'd linked it to him in my email message earlier, saying the same. He used to live in Verdun; Sabaton's album with that song on it came out around the time I first met him. When it was summer and we walked along what was almost a beach, except a lot of it was grass-covered, I said, "THIS is a field of Verdun!" and he suggested holding up a boombox that was playing that song, like I was trying to woo someone. And now I told him that I'd listened to it while I was editing because it was "upbeat," but then I clarified, "I mean, it's about the bloodiest battle in World War 1, so by upbeat I meant...uh...fast, I guess." So I started the world war stuff (yes, that's what I feel guilty about - hitting people in the face, starting world wars), but, by dog, he didn't have to say that stupid thing. Or more like, I didn't have to repeat it. He asked what the dog's name was again, so I said Shiloh. "Oh." Lightbulb-idea face. "Tell your mom she should call it Shoah." That took a second to compute - vocabulary you've only known for five years can be like that - but I frowned before I smiled. "No, come on. Stop it." "Your mom wouldn't like if you said that?" Faux innocent. "Well, well," my thoughts had been disturbed, scattered, but he had no way of knowing that, "I don't know if she knows what that means...I mean, Dad would..." But there was no reason for me to actually test it out at the dinner table. Sheesh. Or to claim that "Well, Lia wouldn't get mad!" If I value our friendship, I won't check. Not like THAT. My_cousin_is_alive, for one, because her other grandfather managed to get away from Not-the-Dog's-Name thing. And she wouldn't like it if I brought it up like that either; she'd be like, Look, this is NOW, I'm me, I'm not some idea of something that makes you worry. She's coming on Wednesday to talk dog-related stuff and have a sort of Valentine's Day celebration. In which nobody except Mom and Dad has a nearby significant other (L. broke up with A., the hyper former getaway_driver; the person she MIGHT like is in B.C.). Oh yeah: when I called her yesterday, her big piece of advice was, "Make sure you start off by calling the dog by his name, so he recognizes it early on. Don't call him by too many nicknames." 220213 what's it to you? who go blather from