plasticbag.org

It’s become a matter of some amusement to my friends and online compatriots that I have started to say that I really want to be with someone who knows HTML. They find it strange that something so unconnected to sex should impact on my desires. They think I’m joking, but I’m not.

More and more over the last few months this has been on my mind. The only conclusion I can come to is that I find my magic in a world of geeks. Not geeks in the sense of hapless individuals with no social graces – but geeks who are slightly nervous, sometimes quiet people, filled with fire and thought and insight and intelligence, people with a sense of a calling, a craft, even if it’s one that they can’t always articulate effectively, even while it informs everything they do.

I was talking about this with Meg today and I’m going to include an edited portion of our conversation (which her permission), because I think that the process of editing it down will make it clearer in my mind. And I also think it might help explain some of my stranger object choices of recent months to people who know me…

Meg: You know like you said the other day? About wanting to have someone who knew HTML? I have to agree.
Tom: I just think it would be wonderful to have some kind of relationship with someone who kind of understood the strange dark lusts we have within. Someone who understood the allure. It would be like you had some kind of common goal. Like you were fucking in the presence of god. I keep wanting to write about this on plasticbag.org but I can’t find the words.
Meg: Let’s say I was a chef. I loved cooking, and creating and understanding food and taste was my life. It would make sense to want to find someone who wasn’t just happy to settle for chips with everything – someone who understood flavour, or was at least willing to explore.
Tom: Absolutely. I think it feels something like a higher purpose that you need to share.
Meg: No-one would even question that.
Tom: You feel a connection with the stuff you create, and feel part of a larger network of creative people. Like a huge network of interconnected computers stretching across the planet, perhaps..! Or like layered words joining and conjoining in endless spiralling files. You’re a part of that – of that confluence of language and energy (which is all it all is really). And it feels special – luminous even. And I want to be with someone who can see that magic.
Meg: Yes – everything you do and are is layered with your understanding of web and html and code and design and language and and and and … and you can’t switch it off. Someone else has to be able to understand that.
Tom: So completely. You become changed by it, like you would by any passion. Your self comes to resemble your passion. And comes to respect and love people who can evidence the same feeling and insight. People you can teach and learn from. People – essentially – that you connect with.

We are practitioners of a magical craft of arcane words and structures that swirl around one another to produce pages that resemble nothing so much as illuminated manuscripts – words and images, structure and beauty. And behind them all is the vast formless expanse of other pages and people and worlds and experience. I want someone I can share that with. Someone who can explore with me.

I’m in the middle of writing a couple of proposal articles for the BBC’s film site at the moment, and I’m thinking of writing about aspects of the Oscars that aren’t normally touched on. An article about foreign cinema and the Oscars might be interesting, I’m thinking. Which led me to this piece about the DGA Awards and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

According to the Budget Reckoner over at the BBC, my income will increase as a result of Gordon Brown’s actions by £2.35 a week. Which, you know, is nice. I guess. Well it’s not bad anyway. Not much of anything really. Certainly doesn’t hurt. Erm. God. What a boring budget.

Tom, please, cite your sources – this is no time for frippery. Yes Tom, Sorry Tom – I found it in Metafilter. Metafilter you say? What is this foolishness? Well it’s a job advert. You what? A job advert – “Employment Wanted”. And why could I possibly have the slightest interest in reading about that? It starts like this: “Former Marijuana Smuggler – Having successfully completed a ten year sentence, incident-free, for importing 75 tons of marijuana into the United States. I am now seeking a legal and legitimate means to support myself and my family.” Ah. I see. So it’s supposed to be funny? Well …. yes …

And lo! Did the Futurama poster read as follows: YOU’RE NOT PAID TO THINK: A MINDLESS WORKER IS A HAPPY WORKER! SHUT UP AND DO YOUR JOB. Which in many ways might have been a little too close to the bone for my liking.

Highlights of an evening of soul-crushing embarrassment and soul-enhancing re-bonding: Horrified tonsil-hockey with Commercial Manager, bites on my back from drunken Matt, conversation straining limits of politeness concerning ‘dirtbox’ action with David and Kate, a poem (short) named ‘Every Nice Girl Loves a Candle’ , all the vodka and tonic in the world, the wonderful Rhonda Carrier, and finally: leaving presents amounting to stretchy insects, Pot Noodles, Pork Pies, Futurama posters, X-men chocolate bars, From Hell and Microserfs – all contained in a great big brown box. The trial of fire is over – I have passed from my Time Out adolescence into manhood.

So today is my final day at Time Out as a full-time employee. I’ve worked with them since February 1999, shortly after completing my journalism course. I’ve got a certain amount of freelance work lined up – all of which looks fairly interesting – but it’s still going to be strange not going into the office every day. There are a lot of people that I am going to miss, and a couple that I probably won’t.

This evening is my leaving ‘do’ – to be held in the upstairs of a sausage pub in Fitzrovia (don’t ask) – and I’m really ‘conflicted’ about it. Obviously I want to say goodbye to everyone, but I don’t really consider it to be a time of celebration – more of necessity.

Unlike Prol, I have no intention of wishing anyone a nice time at SXSW because I’m overwhelmingly bloody jealous and gutted that I’m not going to be able to go myself. I’m going to be there next year. That much is certain. [How I reacted last year]

I think it says a lot about a person when a mere twenty minutes after The West Wing [We Love You CJ] ends on a Thursday evening, they are already bored enough to start looking for information about SMIL – the Synchronized Multimedia Integration language. Perhaps it’s too many stimulants in my diet. Too much nervous energy at the moment. Watch my head spin round. Let’s go knock over a 7-11. [Note to self: check to see whether I’m the only person who has never thought that Rob Lowe was attractive until he was in this series.]

I was on the tube this morning, flicking idly through my copy of A Complete Hackers Handbook, which I am reading because I think people should read books like that, whether or not they understand even one tenth of what is in them, and I suddenly notice the guy opposite me. He’s listening to a personal stereo – much too loudly – and my attention was drawn to him by a very familiar piece of music – it’s something from the film Hackers (1995) [Amazon], which is a really dorky film, but one that I really really love. So I’m sitting on the tube, with people milling around in front of me, with people squeezing me in on both sides, and I’m trying to manoeuvre the book into his line of sight, so we can make eye-contact and make a secret “we’re in the know” connection. I try this for twenty minutes. Then he gets off the train.