the conference on human computer interaction (CHI 2003) left me with a real distaste for usability. reminds me of my loss of faith in poetry. linguistics did not sit on the fence, it strove to be a science and it was. usability does not know whether it wants to be an art or a science. it probably wants to be more the latter but right now it is succeeding at neither. what do i want it to be? probably an art. a pragmatic art. i think user-interfaces are a sort of folkart.

if i don’t leave chapel hill as soon as i graduate, when will i? does it matter? this is not something i worry much about, mostly something people around me worry about for me. i think school makes it hard to see clearly. i think when i am done with school for good, and i have some time at work to just work, i’ll be able to plot out my next steps. right now it just doesn’t make sense to worry much about any of that.

occasionally i come home late at night to a dark quiet house from some less dark less quiet place and i go to the bathroom and take something out of my bag, a bottle of shampoo or some hand soap to replace a just now empty bottle and i have this feeling that my parents would be pleased to know that when inconsequential things run out, like soap, i get more.