i am a small person. it's true. sometimes i forget that i am a small person. small is relative, and when i'm not comparing my own size to that of anything else, it's easy to forget.

when i flew to see you, i told you how being amongst so many normal americans when i fly reminds me that most people are noticeably larger than me: taller, weightier, stronger and generally more physically substantial. it often means the difference between being someone who jostles and being someone who is jostled, the difference in size being enough to make a difference in grammatical case, in the degree of agency one has or is expected to have when it comes to collisions in meatspace.

it means (if only as a result of subconscious associations i don't blame people for) being used to the feeling (also, by now, subconscious) of being overlooked, underestimated, perceived as being younger than i am; perceived as vulnerable and a natural recipient of people's caring instincts.

it's not that i really mind being small. i find it neither good nor bad. only that it can be startling sometimes, in the way that it is always startling when for a moment you see yourself as you realize other people must see you.

the inventors of the unix operating system dreamed of a core library that would be small, as small as possible, supplemented by many, many small modules--independent pieces of code, each for doing one thing, included only as necessary, with simple interfaces through which they would all speak to each other in a common language. they would work well together without needing to be combined into one big thing.

i want to be a small module. i want to do one thing, and i want to be included only as necessary.

the dream of the beautiful small is alive today in the node.js and npm community. node itself provides as little as possible, which also means it dictates as little as possible. its require() system means each module is constrained to the variable you assign it to, rather than having access to modify your global scope. node finally made sense to me when i began to see it as an open space for separate modules to talk and work together respectfully and with mutual trust.

it's possible that what all computer programs want is to do less, and to have fewer demands on other computer programs. those seem like good ambitions to have.

my cat is a small module. so is geeda's baby.

you sent two boxes to my house containing everything you possess that you won't be able to take on the plane when you come, and these are small modules.

skype time is a small module. it's a time for me to imagine my body fitting perfectly into your arms like a small module.

hearing a train go by is a small module. your wanting to make me tea is a small module, independent of your actually making me tea, though the two can interact, and often do.

my lecture was a small module composed of a hundred different smaller modules called words. my lecture was the most maintainable piece of code i've ever written.

i would like to be as small and modular as a word. i would like to mean something when someone floats me on the air. that would be my one thing.

being quiet with you is a small module.

being asleep is a small module that will run after this module exits.