Space-Time Confusion and the Stone Ages

Well, first an update on the 'net. Still no Internet. I really cannot be sure when it will be up, but hopefully soon because I need to catch up with the world. On the positive side I have been able to get more work done and do a bit more exploring in the city because I am not tied to a routine of checking my email 30 times a day or reading a half dozen newspapers to pass time. Of course, exploring to me is a kind of vacant wandering...I think its more personal exploration on the move than an exploration of my surroundings. So I have not done anything of note besides wander around and scout out the cafes so that I can find a regular hideaway for reading and writing.

A little news on the cafe search may be warranted. I have found a couple cafes that rate high on the comfort factor, meaning they are spacious, the noise is arranged in a manner to minimize distraction, and there is available comfortable seating. Cafe seating ranges from the kind of seats that will lead you to need to have your spine replaced to overstuffed couches and chairs that you can sink into and waste the day/night away. I have found a cafe (actually a chain of cafes, but more on that) which fits into the latter category. As I mentioned before though, comfortable seating and adequate lighting are often inversely related. Fortunately, I have found one location in the chain that seems to keep the room well-lit.

The chain is called Cafe Barresso, and while the tea is sub-par at best, the service and atmosphere are rather pleasant. There is the little matter of it being a "chain" that is rather disconcerting. In San Diego our market is saturated with small, locally owned businesses and they have a character that is absent in the factory-style of business that is the "chain." I also just don't like contributing to that business model because it is efficient and low-quality, which beats inefficient and high-quality any day since efficiency is really the only value we in the consumerist, uber-capitalist West have fully incorporated (at times we pretend to have other "values" by dressing our buyer-seller nihilism up in more noble attire like liberty, equality, or religion...a beast is a beast regardless of the grandeur of its gown!)...Anyway, the Cafe Barresso will have to do until something more noble comes along.

I did, however, have a mighty fine soy chai tea latte yesterday at a different cafe. Unfortunately the seating at this cafe was so uncomfortable that I had to chug the drink and get out in order to avoid agonizing discomfort. I would recommend a fusion cafe-bookstore that combines the best qualities of each. The cafe would be loaded with overstuffed reclining chairs and more traditional table set-ups for those who need the work space. The music would be present, but not overbearing, and the selection would be left largely up to me. The second floor would be a vintage-used-new bookstore overfilled with philosophical texts. I would probably avoid other genres because I do not know enough about them...and in reality this cafe-bookstore would be run by an iron-clad, but benevolent, dictatorship...the "tyranny of Tim." It would essentially be my private reading room open to the public because I enjoy their company. A nice touch, particularly here in Denmark, would be a fireplace. People could be banned for life for violating any of my arbitrary rules...and smoking would be strictly prohibited!

Oh yeah...I forgot about the "Space-Time Confusion" component of the title. I would like to discuss the mathematical proof that accompanies Einstein's theory of special relativity....yeah right! I know well enough to leave the science dogma and its "truths" to those priests in white lab coats. This actually has to do with the completely chaotic nature of my sleeping patterns lately.

I have been on anywhere between 2-4 hours of sleep a night, but it is not traditional sleep problems or insomnia with their varying degrees of misery. I have found that since I do not have a watch or a clock, and since the sun rises late and sets early here, that I have no concept of time. I wake up in the morning at 9 am and its dark. I wake up at 3 am and its dark. So I just get up, take a shower, and go. This has, on more than one occasion, led me to arrive at the Metro station anywhere between 3 and 5 am. This morning I got there around 4:35 am and was forced to stand in the cold for 25 minutes until the Metro started running again because if I went home I would have had to just turn around and go back. I have tried to infuse my eating schedule with a high degree of regularity so that my body will begin to self-regulate, but this approach has been fruitless to date.

Its not a big deal yet, but some of you are well aware of my propensity for rather horrific insomnia and this is the sort of thing that leads down that road quickly. What starts out as going to bed too late and getting up to early becomes not going to bed at all. Then comes the unconscious wakefulness where your mind seems to sleep while your body is awake (I am not a dualist, how do I reconcile this?). Or, what is infinitely more pleasurable is the delusional insomnia where you think for instance that you may be on the verge of solving an unresolved aspect of mathematical theory when a bit of reflection will lead you to realize that not only are you not a mathematical prodigy, but you cannot even accurately compute the tips at restaurants. There is the paranoid delusional insomnia too where you stay up all night changing the way you have ordered your books...alphabetized by authors last name, author's first name, title, genre, ad nauseam and then cataloguing the system to make sure nobody steals your books...from an objective standpoint it is just humorous...but from the inside looking out it is frighteningly surreal.

I will leave out the account of the monotonous insomnia in this "anatomy of sleeplessness" because, as the name implies, it is rather boring. The question is, does this ever really happen to me, or am I just rambling cause its early, I am bored, and I feel like entertaining! Who knows...but that is all from lovely Denmark and perhaps soon I will return to the 20th century with Internet connection. Perhaps more exciting things on the way though since my Danish class is almost over. A trip to Berlin may be materializing after I found out there is a gallery exhibit/film festival style screening devoted to Stanley Kubrick...whose films I don't get at all!