THE WRITER MUST EAT -> patreon.com/trn1ty <-

| \    |   | blah!
|\ | `\|\  | the rantings and ravings
|/ |(_|| | * of a depraved lunatic

<^>

2024-04-09

It was probably thirteen hundred something and I was in the back seat of the
Solara craving a cigarette more than I craved life, death, or any other stim.
Hyperpop was blasting on the radio and my roommates were talking about
something or another, programming related. Rust syntax? I mentioned the AWK
book's second edition had come out this year and that I had downloaded it. Emma
said something about how it was a shame AWK was specified in POSIX. Something
or another... I couldn't focus on the conversation, which was a shame, because
it was the only thing on which I was trying to focus. Topics blurred in and out
of my vision like a radar on a tank slowly pinging the surroundings of a sun-
bleached desert, though this desert much more resembled a town on the outskirts
of Denver than a war torn country (the difference being that the buildings were
standing- and also modernist architecture). Eventually I gave up and ceded
whatever point I was trying to make, though to be honest I felt my mouth was
moving on its own. Neither I or Kami were awake, barely even lucid. Just
dreaming of that first drag off a fresh red...

Boulder came into view and changed the pallete (is that how you spell that?) to
a vivid, passionate green I hadn't known since Pennysylvania. The buildings
went from stucco (I think. maybe Adobe. I don't know this land's building
materials) to red brick and wood and metal and glass, the people were no longer
cowboys but yuppie college students wearing Apple Airpods Pro and talking on
iPhones and a mix of turtlenecks and thick-framed glasses and
circular-spectacled faux cottagecore dress-wearing women. This was a college
town and the young adults were wasting no time on the years allotted them to be
silly or stuck-up. The streets narrowed from I-25 and the stores huddled on the
streets between smaller lots than for which America has the taste and paid
parking at $1.50/hr. I stared through the nook between the passenger and driver
at the shrubbery, the manicured lawns and overgrown trees, Colorado's Harvard
or Harvardoid. A non-student couldn't tell the difference. I was consumed by
the nicotine withdrawal and came to, my middle finger and my thumb rapidly
clicking at each other like I was some fiend with trigger finger from an alien
gun, outside the car, walking towards the pay kiosk in a trance. I stood and
stared at the lush, soft grass that New Englanders know in their hearts marks
home and eventually noticed it was time for me to swipe my paycard in the slit
underneath the screen. Beep. We had three hours, until 1822. I noticed I lost
two hours to my daemon and turned to berate it for taking my valuable time only
to remember the devil was in my head, not my house, and walked with the
roommates to the library which was our destination in the first place.

After enduring my roommates' lectures regarding the law and forbidden actions
(such as climbing through construction in order to make our route much shorter)
we arrived at Norlin Library and, after one of them had a brief chat with the
student at the inquiries desk and a long sojourn onto the Information Super-
Highway in search of clues, we took a small elevator to the fourth- no, wait,
we pressed the wrong button and corrected- the fifth floor. There were a great
many people and I wondered if we had found the right place before being handed
an ornate program printed on soft, thick, reflective paper explaining the event
before us. It was double sided with the Toki Pona on the first side and the
English on the back.

Originally: pini la, toki pona li pali musi pi jan wan. tenpo ni la, ona li
kama toki pi jan ale. tenpo kulupu ni la, jan o toki lon ni!

My interpretation: In the past, Toki Pona was a fun activity of one person. In
this time, it is the language of all people. In this community event, people
discuss this!

Provided English: Toki Pona: From Personal Art Project to Small World Language

There were many people and many things happening. Qdoba - not Chipotle, as the
program stated - were lighting flames underneath metal containers in which
tortilla chips and salsa mixes would be served. While one of my roommates
pissed I meandered over to the books table, where pu (Toki Pona: The Language
of Good), ku (Toki Pona Dictionary), and jan Sonja's latest book, su (The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Toki Pona Edition), were on display. I asked a clump of
the crowd how the books could be purchased and a woman in pink said quietly
that she would be accepting cash after the discussion, or another person would
be accepting money via Venmo.

My craving gave way to anxiety at the crowd. I and the roommate who was not in
the bathroom wandered anxiously around the conference hall for a bit before,
after the other roommate came back and held our things, we both went to the
bathroom, I with a little bit of hesitation just from nerves. I tried not to
have a heart attack. When I came back out there was still a great deal of
socialization happening and my roommates and I found seats in the row behind
the front a few minutes before the discussion started and I realized the person
in pink was jan Sonja whose first impression of myself had been that I was a
sweaty, nervous fan.

jan Sonja was accompanied by jan Lakuse and Boulder locals and nearly-locals in
chairs at the front of the room facing a crowd that overflowed from the sixty
or so seats to standing room at the back of the hall. jan Sonja and jan Lakuse
were equipped with lapel microphones attached to wireless transmitters on their
waists and the rest of the round table passed around two handheld microphones.
The round table was comprised of, from left to right, and to my foggy
recollection:

	jan Masoko (Tessa Moskoff)
	jan Kasin (Caedin Cook)
	jan Wiwa (River Smith)
	jan Lakuse (Chelsea Raacz)
	jan Sonja (Sonja Lang)
	jan Sa (Jack Foster)
	jan Elu (El Hays)
	jan Oli (Olivia Bahr)

And they each had insightful and interesting questions that I don't remember.
The talk was followed by my roommates socializing and me standing at the books
table waiting for someone who seemed like an authority to start accepting dana.
It didn't take long until jan Sonja found a seat by the table and as I had cash
I could purchase my books first.

<^>

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