Dimensions

I took physics in high school, calculus in high school and one one class in college. I don't remember how to find a derivative anymore. I've read very little of Einstein and even less Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan. What I am reading is A Wrinkle in Time for the first time since I was in fourth grade. Here is what my brain is puking:

Imagine a computerize chess board. The board itself is second dimensional. Each turn, each piece can scan its possible moves across the second dimensional field, but can only move in the first dimension (the knight is arguable, but I don't feel like arguing). When a piece is taken in a third dimensional game of chess, a person lifts the opponents piece off the board. This depth does not exist in second dimension chess, so the piece just disappears.
Scientists seem to agree that the fourth dimension is time. Makes sense. Put together an infinite number of one-dimensional lines to make a two-dimensional plane. Infinite two dimensional planes create a three-dimensional space. An infinite recording of our three-dimensional moments creates four-dimensional time.
But!
We spend so much time with the dimensions we can touch and comprehend. We like how ordinal they are, one creating the next, demonstrated with a stack of papers and a simple equation.
We're dealing with the infinite here, people. That means, quite literally, anything and everything can and will happen.
Things can exist in the second and fourth dimensions without life in the third. That chess game existed in time. Maybe the chess game could even perceive time in a way we third dimension humans can't. The fourth dimension seems to be an easy one to pair with other dimensions. I personally have the hardest time with the first dimension. No depth or breadth or anything. Just A to B. Yes or no. It just always feels wrong.
Before I go adding in any more dimensions, I want to make it clear with the ones we have that they are less in quantitative or qualitative order and more in order the way musical notes line up on a scale. The pitch sounds higher, note requires more vibrations per second, but we don't consider the quantitative or qualitative value of one note versus another. That's how I'm trying to see the world and that'd unquestionably how we should see the dimensions. We can give them numbers but fuck that whole cardinal/ordinal mess.

Our thoughts seem to be the infinite sum of our experiences, and our experiences are our human familiarity with time. Thus, the fifth dimension contains our human process of thought, our thinking consciousness. I've always been fascinated by how people think and how it varies; pictures, words, feelings.

Quick experiment: If I write the phrase "A very tall woman walked into the flower shop," do you hear the words as you read? Envision it happening? Get some essential sense and understanding of tall woman entering flower shop? Some combination? Something completely different? (PLEASE comment at the end of this post! I think we'd all like to know what it's like in other people's brains.)
Take the infinite summation of everything in the first five dimensions: line, plane, space, time, and thought. Total: feeling. People already use the "sixth sense" to describe something that is clearly based in a dimension of non-physical feeling, so I like feeling as the sixth dimension.
Again, I emphasize that none of these are ordinal and we, being human, are like the computerized chess board that loses sight of things as soon as they leave a dimension we understand.

There's so much I don't know, so much to know, so much universe.
I don't know quite how to explain the way in which this is both a purposeful distraction from Boy thoughts and at the same time justifies and makes whole everything that is incomplete. If you could plot this point where I am right now, it is the place of the spider. There's a lot pulling me down, but I remember how beautiful the world is, how infinite, and how possible and probable do their little dances to keep all of our dimensions and senses on edge with the sweet drug of hope.

Hanibal Lecture

I need a regimen. Structure. Some skelleton for my daily activity. I'm so scared of what happens when I get locked into things and then "fail" to do them, I instead go for the amorphous blob life.

I need to write. Every day. Make a schedule. Give myself hours of writing instead of hours of fucking around on the internet. Write in my journal. Write on here. Write blips and stories and anythings. Just write. Set a timer. There are alarms on my phone. I have one set daily for waking me up so I get up at roughly the same time every day. Get up, walk dog, eat and write until noon? I can do that. Write anything. Write about not writing if I'm feeling that stuck stuff. Write reviews of movies. Just make sure I'm producing words in such a way that those words can be read by another person at another time.
Maybe that'll help my recent brain self-cannibalism....
Chomp chomp chomp there is nothing in the universe to hold onto chomp everything is relative chomp all I have is perception chomp and perception chomp is relative and unreliable chomp so who am I? chomp! What am I? chomp! there is absolutely no way of knowing and no stationary unquestionable and dammit I want something stationary to hold onto chomp chomp gobble gobble swallow wipe juices off corner of mouth with napkin.
I'm reading Tom Robbins's Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. I hated the first 40ish pages. Now I'm much more mixed about it. Staggering. Totally post-modernist. Totally those guys in creative writing classes who are so amused by their own uber-randomness and creativity. Like, come up with some really obscure bit of subconscious something that you force together and make it work because life is crazy anyway, man. Tip your hat as often as possible to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. It reminds me of a boy I liked a lot one summer at camp. I couldn't write shit that summer. It's not my style. I'm forcing myself to read it anyway for the parts I do like and because it is a style and I don't really like the currently popular mid-century revivalist decor, like what 1970 thought 2010 would look like. But I'm studying it because it's popular and people buy it and it doesn't hurt to know what other people like. There's no right answer. Opinion. All opinion. I like to think that what's "right" is what causes the least amount of pain, stress, oppression, etc. But that's all subjective, too. Too much subjective. Give me ether.

These are thoughts I've had since elementary school. Some are more developed than others. Some bother me more than others. Sometimes I can ignore things, like basic questions of existence. Sometimes I trip over those things every step I take. I don't give myself enough credit, allow myself to ponder and wonder without feeling like a pompous asshole. Why, if everything is so subjective and ok, am I so infinitely critical of myself? It's like I use the subjectivity to move from perspective to perspective so that I can shoot myself down wherever I go, whatever I think or do. Use your powers for good, Annabell. And self good. I think about Neighbor Guy. He's imposed all these rules on himself so he'll think about others, but he's just never dealt with his own issues and is way too fucked up to care or notice anybody else's existence. Is there an answer to that? Does society have it? Am I doing the "right" things? What am I doing anyway? Doubt doubt doubt. I am a parfait of doubt.

Then there are the fruit flies. In the last few days, they've attacked in force. I leave out an empty beer bottle from when people came over Saturday night, and the next morning it's a macroscopic orgy. The food that gets caught in the drain stopper after I do dishes is also very popular. I empty it into the garbage under the sink, which has also attracted quite the colony. I attack each space with bleach. Fruit fly holocaust after fruit fly holocaust, and still they send in reinforcements. Why do they like the paper towels sitting in the bathroom? Why do they like the bathroom? My office desk lamp? My printer? When I was a slob, the appearance of bugs told me I needed to clean up. But now, what more am I supposed to clean? I'm sorry I have a garbage can! What can I do! Apples! Those apples are very good and they get mealy in the fridge! I don't want to put them in the fridge, but what else can I do! I'm no longer asking for a fruit fly infestation. How do you ever know when you're doing as much as you can do and the rest is just futile?

And there again is the big question. I want to know something. I want some sense that I'm doing something right. That cleaning my house has a positive cause-and-effect relationship and I'm not just putting on makeup before I get in the shower. I want an answer. When I get like this, I just stay like this until I can sufficiently distract myself back into the day-to-day and ignore my lack of gratifyingly believed purpose and motivation until the next time. Something shiny and busy, or extremely tactile. Boys are good distractions. I need to find a Boy other than Possible Boy. And have more local female friends I can bitch at and talk to about thinking, because we womenfolk don't get enough credit for thinking about thinking, and most of my favorite thinking she-people live anywhere from 45-minutes to 45 countries away.

I ate, I wrote, now I should clean and do errands but I may crawl back into bed with Tom Robbins. It's my first day adding to the "schedule." Go easy on myself. I have to go to my parents' house for dinner tonight. That's enough stress.

Jacuzzi Power!

It's 1 AM. Today's pain didn't like light or sound, so I slept a lot. Snuggled the dog a lot. A few hours ago as I was lying around awake but unable to use the computer or read or listen to audiobooks or anything, I tried to think what I could do to keep my brain interested. What senses could I stimulate in a way that wouldn't just cause more pain? I've thought more than once that it'd be nice if I could read braille. It would also be nice to have a human snuggling companion, but I'm not there yet and human snuggling companion would have to be well aware of the "no talking or I will kill you, and no taking my snippiness personally" rules. Then I thought of it: jacuzzi. I own a jacuzzi tub. Warm, sensory, soft, different than bed that I'm in all the fucking time, no light, the sound doesn't usually bother me. Perfect.

And it was. For over an hour. Distracting from the ouchies and even melting away some of the pain. I need to do that more often. Maybe get some essential oils or something. I threw in some Epsom salts for good measure since I had them sitting right there. Awesome.

Now the computer is starting to bother me again, but I'm using it in my dining room and I had this picture of myself silhouetted in the window by the glow of the screen with one of my newfound male admirers walking past on the street*, looking up, not knowing it's me but still being struck by the image. I also had something Japanese and entirely unrelated playing in my head, but the strangest thing about my thought process at that moment was how aware I was of exactly two of my channels. I'm surprised I didn't have "The Little Mermaid" soundtrack playing and several different ideas for things I should feed myself before going to sleep and who knows what else as well.

Ugh. I stopped making sense. Back to sleep.

*entirely probable now that they all live in my neighborhood. does this mean no more rolling out of bed and walking the dog without changing or brushing my hair?