Back to the NJ

Spent some quality time in front of the mirror yesterday, practicing facial expressions so I can better fake being a normal person. I'll be making some first impressions soon in Texas, and if I wear my natural mask of stoned disinterest I might end up with the same quality friends as I made in Boston (this is where my friends find out whether they're optimists or pessimists). I also needed some work on that smile you give people that you pass on the street, especially the ones of the cute and female persuasions. Prior to today, my mouth had only one smiling position - corners of the lips wrapped around the ears and eyes reduced to sub-Asian width slits. After much struggle with disobedient facial muscles, the mirror yielded minor results. Oh well, at least I can frighten people away with my variety pack of terrifying grimaces.

Came back home today. The bus ride was uneventful; my seat-mate turned out to be quiet and polite. I couldn't find anything to get annoyed at, which was tremendously frustrating. As a result, I didn't sleep a wink, and finished another award-winning book that was somewhere between "OK" and "pretty decent."

The book was Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman, a professor I took a class with at MIT. He was more interesting in real life than on paper, and much more humorous and irreverent. The book in contrast takes it self much more seriously.

The plot captures one of those rare moments in 2001: A Space Odyssey where the music shifts from lullaby-esque to artificially-dramatic, and a big black pyramid appears to herald a new evolutionary or technological leap for mankind. In this case, the evolutionary leap is mental neutering, or to use Haldeman's word - "pacifying" - creating man that cannot initiate violence unless it is in self-defense. Asimov of course already explored this concept, and managed to write about it much more lightly and interestingly. For the sci-fi illiterate, I'm refering to Gaia from the extended Foundation Series. In either case, Haldeman mantra is: your balls are not in your sack, they're in your head (the one upstairs).

Texas is only a week away. Tomorrow I resume training in faking friendliness.