Sins

How many sins have I committed in my life?

• I've run the dishwasher when it's not quite full
• I've driven up and down Highway 5 in San Diego for purely recreational purposes
• I've talked to clients with a stammer and lack of confidence
• I've had unprotected sex (and lied about it)
• I didn't notice early enough the problems in my relationship
• I kissed a girl
• I've had sex outside of marriage (all of it, because I've never been married)
• I had sex with a student (but didn't mark his assignment, and we stayed together for 10 years)
• I've eaten a whole small wheel of brie with water crackers, by myself, as an after work snack (more than once)
• I ignored a work colleague's request and put it to the bottom of my to do list because they were mean to me when making it
• I've spit olive pips out into my hand at a fancy dinner
• I've stayed up too late on a school night.

Speaking of which...

Someone alert Benjamin Lee Whorf

The monkey is the only living survivor who is fluent in Bean language. And he came quite late to it. Zoomy monkey.

All the others were destroyed by Langoliers.

Cast Away

Tonight, a Thursday, I didn't want to go straight home so I walked into the city and around. I was trying to find a Japanese place that I'd stopped at on the way home from the last Philorum Dialectic that I went to, and I went up and down a few streets but eventually found it. It was quite crowded so the only seat they had for one was at the back of the place in the corner of a long bench against the wall. On a shelf just at eye level was a box of cling wrap and the brand was "Cast Away", with a drawing of a palm on a little island as the logo.

When I was first single, first living in my new place, I went through a phase of stories about people stranded alone in the sea. I read "The Life of Pi", which immediately become one of my top 10 favorite books of all time (although not because of the sea thing, mostly because it's about religion and ends up with an existentialist conclusion. Also because it's an epistemology book, there are several different models that could explain the evidence and no way in principle of knowing which is true -- I have always loved that kind of thing). I got out the first season of "Lost" on dvd, although I didn't get hooked on it, didn't really connect with the people. I watched the end bit of "Joe Vs the Volcano" when it was on tv -- still my all-time favorite Tom Hanks movie, and full of lessons for living.

But the one that stuck with me was another Tom Hanks movie, Cast Away. I found it just gripping watching him exist on his island. I understood completely the thing with Wilson, because it's exactly what I had developed with the monkey (perfect pet! never have to walk him! you can come home as late as you like and he's still just delighted to see you). I knew just how he felt when Wilson went away. And I even liked the bit at the end, when he and Helen Hunt try to decide what the heck to do about all of this.

I did notice this pattern, especially because a friend I was hanging out with at the time liked neither the Life of Pi book or the Cast Away movie, so I knew it wasn't just their instrinsic quality, there was something about them that was speaking to me.

Only just tonight, though, looking at the cling wrap box at the little Japanese place on Pitt Street, did I think about the term. "Cast away." Like cast aside, cast out. Tossed out, chucked out. Not, you stood still where you were and everyone else moved off. No, you were cast. And cast away.

So. I'm sure that's what it was.