fractalnavel

the quieter it gets, the quieter it gets.  time to stop a spiral into silence.  i haven't heard much from people lately, and they haven't heard much from me, and that seems to be fine all around.  something to think about.

me, though, i have an excuse, sort of.  a friend has been working at a place down the street for the last couple of years, and i've told him if they ever need a hand just give me a call since it's so nearby and i'm not likely to be doing anything else.  but there has always seemed to be various roadblocks to making that work.

well, a couple weeks back some hurdles were apparently cleared, so he was asking if i could help out.  and then one of their people was leaving, and the need became more urgent.  so i'm like, sure, why not. 

i have been feeling a bit antsy the last couple of months anyway.  i have a high tolerance for doing “nothing”, having had almost four years of practice to date.  but it took most of that time for me to even realize what could have been done with that time.  regrets ?  well, their is a tendency to “what if” in all of us, but i've tried to stay pretty conscious of the (non) choices i was making, and why, knowing i would look back on them someday and wonder “what was i thinking?!”.  and basically the answer came down to needing about half that time to realize what i should not be doing, and the rest of the time discovering the wide variety of options available.

baggage is a big issue with me.  physical (me & my stuff), emotional, and even intellectual in the sense of a somewhat blindered worldview that we all have through no faults of our own; we are all creatures of our pasts.  this time i've been blessed with has allowed me to take care of some of these things.

sometimes i feel like i should be writing an essay entitled “what i did on my midlife vacation”, but what teacher would i turn it in to ?  and that also implies some sort of conclusion. which brings me back to the original topic of this post.

so i've been somewhat more absent than usual because i was, um, working this last week.  ugh, even hate to say it, feels like a sort of self-betrayal (“did you call me?” “no, go back to sleep”).  weird thing to do after this long of a time.  with it's share of anxieties, both about my acceptability in the workplace, and the acceptability of the intrusion of that big of a time-sucker into my life.  interesting - so i have a life ?  anyway, it feels best if i just keep reminding myself that i'm only doing this to fill time and a depleted bank account and to help out where i can, since i'm in the neighborhood, although i'm sure they see it as “employment”.  that way i can keep hold of what i gained in these last years, and perhaps put the “work” in it's proper place in my life, which is the primary existential reality.  or so i hope to keep it.

i wonder if most people had already figured this out.  i went through a crappy two or three decades, no one to blame, really, even you-know-who.  so although i haven't used my resources these last few years to do anything spectacular (although the yearnings are there), i had a lot of other ground to cover first.  as for those dreams of adventure, well, i understand that this has been necessary preparation time, not time lost.  for whatever reasons, this is the way things are, and making giant leaps wasn't part of it.  but it wasn't until very recently that i even recognized the possibilities until they were just about gone.  i also realize that noble leaps into the unknown are all well and good, but so are proper preparations.  you've gotta love the trail even more than the destination.

i guess i have more regrets than i thought ;-)  getting back to the employment thing: it does take up a lot of time out of life, and having a schedule to adhere to is strange. now, i only have a “commute” of a bit over a mile, and they've even given me a box so i could work from home.  that kind of feeds into my natural tendency to just sit here and code, which i've sort of been doing anyway.  and it's nice to update my skills.  the original intent was for me just to come in and backfill on migrating some old-tech stuff to other platforms, but things went beyond that due to the staffing issue i mentioned.  and there's the usual array of project nasties to deal with.  things haven't changed much ;-)

there's only three of us at the moment, soon to be two, and both people i have worked with years ago (craig, jon - poornima says “hi”  ;-)).  and the location - it's next to a gorgeous recently renovated park, and the cusomer is an old orphanage with a large mature campus of their own.  while leaving friday night we saw deer next to the parking lot.  this place is close enough that i can ride topless in the jeep all winter long if i want.

there's a mom & pop coffee shop on the way to stop in at (hey - “the coffee underground” is now “keegan's”.  bummer. but they look to have a cafe now.  cool.)  but i don't really get to take advantage of this stuff since there's a lot of stuff to do and little time to do it in.  at least i have pretty scenery to drive (or walk or bike) by.

and this is only an “as needed” engagement, so could go away at a whim.  on the other hand, i could just work the hours i want if i was so inclined.  however, it's such a nice little arrangement, and well, thinking in that “just helping out” mode, they really need some stuff done, so this will be time consuming for a few weeks.  and that's ok, once i get the “employment” stuff out of my head, and just think about the coding.

i can tell i really don't want a “real” job.  this is very different - working with friends at pretty place in my own neighborhood.  something to think about.  i'll take advantage of this while i can, then. 

as for life in cincinnati, it'd be nice to leave it on my own terms, instead of feeling like i dragged myself off of a battlefield.  something else to ponder.