With WordPerfect on the side in my laptop, the mainframe connected with my desktop. Not sure entirely where all this technology is going but I know that I should use it to help me write my dissertation. I’d like to go to the library with this today, battery not needed, not needed because there are outlets all over the university.
Now, on the morning of Tom and Shelley’s wedding, almost all have gone asleep, or to bed, and I remain awake, with my new computer with the space bar which really needs pushing, which is alright, but the brightness, the glare is too much in the room alone to look at and the spacebar needs extra thinking about, and is not clearly here, with, my eyes closed relaxed, writing in bed or not, what the words are or say, are supposed to be.
God I pray for protection against what has transpired, God I pray that you remedy the damage and glorify yourself, show yourself to be real and true and fully with us Lord, you are God, remedy and fix this and make it all go well, in Jesus name amen.
I should avoid disk access to increase length of battery discharge. I am glad to write on this computer. There is an angle which I am used to for pressing the space bar which doesn’t work on this machine, so I need to develop a new way of striking it, so that it goes down far enough to register.
First journal entry on computer while driving. Now, after all, I am beginning to like these keys more than the ones at home. These have a softer, are softer, easier to touch, easier to press, and that is nice. It is hard to position this computer comfortably, it is hard to make it fit nicely on my lap because it is pretty heavy, but I will get used to it. The nice thing is that I am typing into WordPerfect 5.0 on the road, an impossibility for me not long ago. I am using a Sharp PC-4600, my new machine, Laura calls it hers, that’s OK, it will be when I upgrade, and surely she will be paying for a portion of it, as we share our finances.
The blanket of skies, blue eyes, as a writer, clay hidden behind, space, what is difficult to accomplish, stress, staring, making it, being there, the road, escape, mile, condition clear as glass, lead heavy, sorrow, truce, giving, trust, ecstasy, each announcement, a place of shoulders, forgetting, peace, what is mixed up, mixed, both left and ready, which saved, is a storm, a task, a test, what is easy, on the way to work, during the rest time, is writing, easy once started.
This system is smooth and personal, here my own, always available, clear and crisp, frictionless because thought and effort went into it. I spent time smoothing it out, fixing it up, making it run, putting it together. Now words flow in many colors, now grey on a black background, what I began with, smooth and easy, not too bright, dense liquid letters appearing on the smaller screen than the new VGA. For a while before today I had white on a blue background. But later on, years later when I read this, it won’t matter much what color the screen was when I keyed in the words. Then I will be reading the words in a different format, I don’t know what yet. But I want to be part of the definition of that future. I want to participate in the work to come, the efforts yet to be made. I want to do a great deal of work in the future, to make this real, to make the good general things that can be done happen. A bright day under a blue sky. Sunshine, cool air. Orientation at Iron Hill. A museum full of artifacts. And simply found an arrowhead disbelieved by Terry. Doubted. Perhaps so that I can have it back. So that it can be mine. For I believe in it, believe that it was not a modern creation. But that can’t be proven today. I don’t know enough now.
Computers mean more when you write, when you can produce something on the screen, using the machine. The achieving of something with the machine makes it useful, makes it good, makes it not a dead end. Games aside for me for a long time. Following the plan to do research this spring and write the dissertation this spring summer and fall. To have it done by winter, revised in the spring and finalized, completed, ready for graduation in May 1992. That is my goal, that is our goal, others are behind me on that, want that to happen as well, also. There is a swift beginning, earnest, equable, in tune. God is great this month and every, totally soveriegn and in control. There is a richness, a rightness to who God is, to why we are here, to what we should be doing. I thank God for the fluency he has provided me, for all the easy making of the right way that he has given to me. It is easy to be good with God close by. Calling on him is the way to go, is the way to get him close.
Richard is in Maryland, sad in a big house, Isaiah is doing his best to learn the computer. The DOS functions have been enhanced tonight. All is well and going well.
Clear crystal beginning. Just as it always was. I am a writer on the black screen. Before it was on the white page. This is the dark night. The liquid words are like neon. Like I am making small signs in space. Filling up space with my words, with words that I make. These words are the difference. They make the difference between me and the computer alone. Without me much could be done. But these words would not be here. They are my consciousness when I am gone. Activated by the one who reads. One begins to get what the transcendental poets meant. What language is in utter space. Why words make a portion of reality. Until tomorrow and the last dance of the dream of where we are going. All entered and entertained. This wisdom of tall trees and rich soil. Rain and ripe fruit and the things that the words suggest. What writing is when one is alone. And the night is not what it used to be. What you are when you are alone. What the night is then. And what the sky holds when writing is the only sustenance. Whether you are in Virginia or Delaware. It doesn’t matter. What if figured along rocky expeditions, as something valuable in the star-strewn night, fed from all the poetry you have read, your mind free at last to indulge itself in a wordy trance. Voluble fantasy and mixture of snow. Richness and full flushed growth.
Dear God thank you for my dream:
Playing basketball with Phil Keefe, Dan Rumplick, others, including Dan Morrill. I played extraordinarily, making wonderful shots, using my height, making up for all the mistakes of the past, not afraid to dive.
Early on, a black man chained asked for cookies;
by prayer, a plate was produced under the table.
Before that, two vicious dogs needed to be appeased.
Last part: three personed person I embraced, a group of special children/ adults at a center this a Siamese triplet, you could picture the egg dividing into three but not making the division, fused, confused about identity: Do you know who I am? I said Yes, you look like God, you are a reflection of God
“What is your name,” I asked? “Abram,” she said.
Others at the hospital were heckling, had always asked insidious probing questions, I paid them no attention and even rebuked the French man (in the name of Jesus) at the end when he asked, making fun: do you often debate with yourself? He noticed the puzzlement, the slower thinking process, watched without compassion.
I told others about Jesus, I rebuked the man in the name of Jesus and he fled.
I prayed for the cookies for the black boy. This was after the cookies were eaten.
Abram wanted me to stay for a while. But I had left Laura somewhere without telling her. We had to drive across Minnesota, or a bigger stretch of the midwest; two days were planned: Saturday and Sunday.
Pure compassion is what kept me in the spirit, mentioning Jesus and talking about Jesus was how I kept close to the truth of God and his love during this dream. Compassion protected by Jesus, who can be firm, who has all authority. It is only when the authority in Jesus is not exercised that demonic, human forces play their subtle war of tearing down people, hurting feelings, tearing others down.
Abram wanted me to understand her. The first thing I told her was that he was beautiful. I meant it and that was understood. He was not a freak. He was God-intended for a greater glory, the purpose of revealing more of who God is.
Marriage is part of this same mystery of who God is, so is childbearing; sex is a large portion of this mystery.
I thank you God for this dream, which gave me a greater measure of compassion.
Then I enter my journal entry like Doogie Howser, and I can quickly save it. I guess I learned a lot.
Ask on the Net for the AT Command Set for Hayes Compatible modems.
Snowing now. Had a Sundae with Laura. Ordered a Zeos Notebook 286 and WordPerfect Upgrade.
Pushing for completion of the Ph.D. and greater earning. Need to catch up with the spending of the last ten years.
Using the IBM PS/2 Monochrome Display now–excellent for text.
Lacks color but letters smooth.
In possessions we are living beyond our bounds.
In daily living all is well: food, rent, electricity–all low.
Had a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and crushed walnuts.
This is the bright world, bright flower, movement, collapse, relief, the endlessness, the poverty, the newness, plans, amazement. What is wonderful, complete, ocean, sand, seascape. All countries, oceans, continents, passages, tracts, aloofness. Which wonders when hold, are real, allow. Where I have been where going, what known and unknown. Forever real and thus.