Does happy make you boring? I can't quite conjure the crowd-pleasing cynicism of less satisfactory times. What is going on behind the vapid look, one might conjecture. I think of Homer Simpson, projecting his happy thought bubble of a cow dancing on its hind-legs to a fiddle reel... Do I look like that? I worry a moment, and then my grin reasserts itself.
8 more sleeps...
I've been chatting with Andrew lately on msn. I miss former workmates, former friendships... I miss lunchtime walks with Barry and Al, meetings titled, "break bread, not heads," and Ron's rendition of the Eye of Sauron searching out any signs of weakness on our project, while wheeling around on a tippy step-ladder. I miss inventing semi-gratuitous deviations to process just for the fun of side-stepping the quality auditors. (the soundtrack in my head: "uh-oh, look at the way she got around the defence there- look at her go, she's got a clear path to the goal! oh no- She shoots, she scores!!!")
I miss Cyberplex and the nerf darts sailing over walls, insane clients, and Sean and I giggling helplessly until our legs were crossed as Al was hauled away by airport security. I miss standing up on my desk for no reason, and having everyone else join me for the same reason- no one saying a word, because we were all already communicating what needed said. I miss launch nights, when I wanted to kill every one of you for your stupid "...oh no, the database backup failed" jokes. Or the time we all piled into my hotel room to watch the first Survivor finale. I miss fictitious snow-cones in the parking lot, fluffy bunny slipper emails, I miss hating DevReg, and THAT GUY, and I miss calling Dave Cookie. I even miss Darrell telling me, "yes, yes it's done. Well, it's almost done. No I haven't coded it yet. Well, it's done in my head!" I miss Shantzy belting that old lady on the airplane while aiming for me, and I miss you.
I'm with a whole new crew of zoo these days. Friendships are beginning. Incriminating evidence is piling up. I have a skull on a stick protruding from my chair, and he's wearing a Santa-hat for the cold. When I say, "I've never been wrong- don't question me!" they smile, and don't take me very seriously at all. Of course, I have never been wrong, but they don't know that yet.
It is almost time to take someone on a climbing trip.
I just read J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello. WOW. Buy this book!! My other favourite this year is Douglas Glover's The Enamoured Knight. Fan-freaking-tastic. I've also picked up Umberto Eco's The Island of the Day Before, but the jury's still out.
I have more to tell- like how I spent 2 full days and over a hundred bucks trying to make my parents a DVD of slideshows, and at the end of it all, I have a disatisfying mish-mash and dll problems. Thanks Roxio...
Another thought- a lot of people go crazy when they get old. They go in for crystals, tarot cards and fortune tellers. Neitzche might start making sense, we might start using Machiavelli's The Prince to guide our dealings with the treacherous family cat. The current wisdom suggests that we can stave off yoga and owning a share of a new age book store if we do enough Sudoku puzzles. I say- let the mind go. if it was ever truly yours, it will come back...
But if the yoga thing starts, you might want to find a gun.
