Posthuman Blues

Elizabeth is out of town for the weekend choreographing a dance piece. I'm blogging from the patio of a Starbucks and test-driving my new portable mini-mouse (which appears to work just fine so long as I plug it into the USB jack after I turn on the machine -- otherwise I get a jittery effect and have to rely on my Synaptics touchpad, which, as I've learned from playing with other laptops, is far from state-of-the-art).





I'm still digging the novelty of Wi-Fi; for years, the act of working on the computer was confined to my apartment, so I feel strangely naked taking my show on the road. Around me, students are plugging numbers into hefty scientific calculators and thumbing through textbooks. I'm suddenly conscious of the dormant strings of bulbs mounted on the building opposite me, primed for the Plaza Lighting Ceremony this Thanksgiving. The air smells of coffee and cigarette smoke.

I need to get some reading done; maybe I'll polish off Elizabeth Bear's "Hammered." Yesterday I spent some time perusing Cory Doctorow's Craphound.com and downloading various free online books, including "Accelerando," which I have yet to see in hard-copy.

(Unfortunately, Barnes & Noble is the only bookstore in my part of town. I hate the selection, but the location is almost irresistibly convenient. In a futile act of protest, I've decided to buy all future books from Borders, where at least one can find my own book in stock and more-or-less correctly classified.)