On february 28th at 3pm many of Kim's friends, family and friends of family showed up in Dunham to share in a much needed memorial service.

There were people I had not seen in 16 years, and some I had seen only last week, and some I had never met before. Ralph played a very moving guitar piece, followed by a beautiful Eulogy from Seann that painted a picture of Kim that was as touching and revealing as the painting, also by Seann.

Here is a poem Kim sent me last year. It was still at the rough draft stage but it is revealing:

Friday, Oct 19, 2001:
I just wanted to share my excitement. I saw the speech pathologist (Sandi Bojm) and she's fantastic. I am going to work with her, beginning in a week or so. She is helping me to get a small grant to aid in the $90.00 hr. cost. I took the weekend to think things over and consider all the options out there...just to be sure. She really wants to work with me (I like her energy alot) and vice versa. I don't remember the last time I felt so hopeful, and free. There has been such a weight on me for so many years Diane. It felt so good to talk with somebody who understood my dilemma, and can help me. It's funny. Even she found it difficult to detect my problem, and as a result could sense my frustration with it. It is very real and detrimental to my self-esteem. In the same way that I use avoidance tactics in speech I use them in life. I avoided a career out of poor self-image and fear (fear of my secret being revealed). I avoid good things... feeling that I am not worthy of them. It is fascinating stuff for me because it ties together so many of the difficulties in my life. I realize change will be difficult and very challenging. But never have I wanted, or needed, it more. I just wanted to tell you how happy this makes me, and share something positive with you. K.

sent to me on Wed, May 29th 2002:

There’s a poetry in the light
Subdued and strained
Yet plain to see as the rain
Hammering down
But not near to perceive
As the colours
Which bend and weave
Across the length of a day
All the pinks and greens
Textured hues of each
Married to the soft yellows and blues
Stemming forth from an earthly kiss
And reaching all the way up
Where blue becomes black
Stars alight on a midnight canvas
There’s a poetry in the light.

sent to me on Wed, Nov 7th, 2001:

There is a carnival about our lives
the sweet, consuming song of the calliope
calls our spirits to dance
...it is tea-time for the demon
and again I have bittered his drink!
...Skipping stones
over deep water..

Here is an excerpt that Kim sent me from his journal. It is something he wrote after the tragedy of September 11th, 2001:

It's just that time at night for me now when all things are surreal. I take stock of my surroundings and look at the sky with wonderment. My heart is hopeful, but steeped in sadness for all of my brothers and sisters. In this kind of solitude and lonely quiet I search for God. When I walk the streets in daylight I seek kinship in the eyes of others. I share smiles with strangers, and sometimes I share their pain. In times of such unimaginable horror, as we have witnessed of late, where can we find the answers we need to heal one another? Some look for justice; others, comfort. We grieve in our own ways. A friend mentioned to me that perhaps my swollen tear gland was a symbol for my stopped emotions. My body has begun to show many signs of wear. I have come to realize that perhaps my body has become poisoned with the blood of the world. Perhaps I cannot grieve the way I need to to begin my healing and help others around me. Are we not sensitive to the elements in ways unexplainable through science and predictibility? I have always believed so. Perhaps in this belief I can find God and touch others around me. I looked for peace today and it eluded me. I put my peace in a girl and she went away. I thought I'd lost it, until I asked for more; and now I want to give my peace away to everyone I meet. Please little girl, have some more...

Here is something Kim wrote to me on May 31, 2003:

I saw the most amazing thing the other day on the field where we ran a couple of times......12th and vine....specifically on the western-most baseball diamond. I was walking along the path towards it and right before me a twister of sand was born. It was about 15 feet high. It danced about collecting sand and, as per usual, noone else saw it. It's as if it was just for me. How lucky I am! If it had not been on the sand I think I would have missed it. I tried to follow it as it left the diamond, but it became more and more difficult. It became an invisible force collecting and tossing various items, like plastic bags, clothes and so on. It reminded of mischief embodied. I smiled....

Whirling sands

Bound in a careless dance

Embracing and discarding in graceful momentum

Twisting winds

Dance across the stillness

Mischief embodied

Embraced and discarded

Your feet touch down gently as you take our shape. Not more than a stir in the leaves and you are born again from the crisp night air. You are gentle to look upon, not the fierce killer we have met in our dreams. Such refined features, a timeless appeal of beauty and presence mocked only by Death's kiss, yet flattered by it's stillness. You walk with the night as your bride, a silent affection for a cloak, which serves and binds you, but never leaves you. You are a shadow, and a specter, haunting humanity and drinking its blood. You are a flutter in the treetops, the peripheral stalker, and the shivers running down our spines. Romance has blessed you, and kept you in our minds. We feed on you as you feed on us. You are a necessary lover, an intoxicating legend and sinister piece of us all. We are seduced by your charms, and captivated by your gaze, all at once aroused and afraid, but unable to refuse your touch. It begins with a kiss, and ends in rapture.

Can machines think?

The ambiguous nature of this question leads one to first ask for the definition of a machine and for that of thought. For the sake of clarity and brevity I shall run by the guidelines that Alan Turing ascribed to any machine that is capable of passing what is now known as the Turing test. Simply put, should a machine be able to fool an interrogator asking a series of questions by making him unable to distinguish the machine from another human responding to the same questions, then this machine is conscious. Whether this test provides proof of consciousness is for a large part the answer to this question. If one accepts the Turing test as an adequate identifier of consciousness then the answer is yes. If, however, one does not then the Turing test is no more proof that machines can think than religion is proof that a god exists.

Shadows of this prison are etched in my mind; I see shapes on the walls. My eyes have grown accustomed to the pitch of solitary blackness. Having spent too many sleepless nights alone I have manufactured sounds to scream across this steady black canvas. They are rich and horrific - Mostly shrieks of realization like fireworks alight above a prehistoric canopy.
Water pools on the floor…a face dancing in the shallow tempers of light. I catch images, soft and fortunate - remedies for a moment’s awakening.