cook on low heat with a cast iron skillet
imagine you are here with me at the compusa on the corner of grant and market in san fran. you are with me as i post to my blog on the cutest powerbook g4 ever. it's dusky outside and i'm about to meet my college roommate for dinner. it's heavenly. almost heavenly, since my hottie isn't with me. but he's with me in spirit. and via cell phone if necessary.
so only two more days before i start my new job. unbelievable. i mean, really. it's been so long. i'm afraid that i won't know how to work a whole eight hours, since i'm used to working in bursts of twelve (and then none). i'm sure it will be fine. i mean, i'm staying at the cutest hotel (hello hotel triton). and i get to meet a ton of new people in a new town and all will be well. but it sure feels weird. i've enjoyed freelancing. i've enjoyed the flexibility and the variety. so we'll see where this takes me.
it's always strange to start a new chapter. this is definitely a new one. at least i still know how to function in marketing. if that was new too, i think my head might explode.
video game designer. oh yeah (as mr. kool-aid would say it). or maybe just video game historian. i barely even play video games, but i find myself watching G4 and then TPT had this great show, the video game revolution, about video games and it got me thinking about how video games will revolutionize the movie and leisure experience.
interactive movies? at this point, video games make way more money than movies annually and when you think about the capacity to tell a good story, i think they really are the future. now we just need some cool chicks who are into designing video games so they aren't all first person shooter.
where are my cool chicks? (or dudes...cool dudes are welcome too)
it's amazing how fast the world moves. it's ironic for me to say that, since i used to travel at the speed of light, or so i thought. and then i was stopped in my tracks. and i've spent the past month wondering why the world hasn't stopped along with me.
see, when you are on the train, you begin to think that everything just flies by fast and that life is supposed to look like that, all blurry and streaky. but when you stop. i mean, completely stop. you realize that life doesn't adhere to time the same way the world does. see, time sometimes feels like it moves on its own, but it doesn't. it depends on us and awareness and presence. and while none of this would've made sense to me a month ago, it makes perfect sense now.
time can crawl and run and stop dead in its tracks. and when i think about that, i can't help but think of the cave. my recent cave-like existance and plato. and while they are not really related, they remind me of each other. and at least i've got that going for me.
after nine months, i've landed a new job. yes, the whole chicago bit panned out and though i don't have to leave the great state of minnesota, i will find myself flying around the midwest more than before. chicago, columbus and pittsburgh, and of course, minneapolis. i'm so thrilled about the job though. after all that's gone on, i've realized that the world did give me what i needed when i needed it. most of the time (and in hindsight).
i was home when i needed to be home.
i found work when i needed money.
i was able to leave the state when my family needed me.
and these last few months have made me realize that i have the best hottie a woman could ask for, the best friends i could ever imagine and a family second-to-none.
so after all that gushing, i guess it sounds like this job has given me a new perspective. only time will tell. i'm glad to have some light amidst the rain.
i'm temping at a new place today. it's a local architecture firm. i'm doing proposals and whatnot. like the glory days of my old job. and they've given me a keyboard that looks like a "my first sony." i've never seen anything like it. no number pad on the right. it's missing a bunch of keys that i didn't know i'd want until they went missing. i didn't realize the extent of my keyboard snobbery until today.
a fitting word. i just returned from california. i could try to make it sound poetic, but i can't. my father-in-law passed away. there is no more poetic way to say it. it was the most tragic, horrendous, amazing experience of my life.
three years ago, i sat by my grandma's bed when she died. my whole family was there. for years, we'd played cards and she'd tell me how people her age really shouldn't live so long. she wasn't suicidal, she just realized that she really did look forward to playing bingo for pennies and she wished that she didn't. she wished that the highlight of her day wasn't what was for dinner in her assisted living place, that she wasn't so excited for morning exercises that consisted of raising and lowering arms and moving her head side to side. she was ready. she was a wonderfully sweet, compassionate woman who i loved with all my heart. but she'd had a full life and she was ready to be with my grandpa.
a week ago, i sat by my father-in-law's bed when he died. i was half-awake. my sister-in-law woke us up so we could be there. he waited for us. he waited for his son, his daughter, his wife and maybe, for me. we'd all been there for almost seven days, holding his hand, playing his favorite music, telling him about how much we loved him. but he wasn't ready. i don't know if you can ever be ready. maybe my grandma wasn't ready but it just seemed like she was. maybe he was ready at the end when he couldn't tell us. i know he's at peace, but the road is so difficult. the love you experience when you are with someone at that time is overwhelming, as is the pain. it is something i soon won't forget. it has changed my reality. it has changed my life.
and i miss him.
