Back when I was a gas station attendant at Johnson's Garage in Sterling, I often had the misfortune of pumping an amount of overpriced gas that would total somewhere between $19.30 and $19.94--the misfortune being that it would invariably incite the payee to comment on how good or bad that particular year had been. I remember $19.75 being regarded consitently as a "good year." The only times that such a comment would be followed up by any evidence, it was often obtusely sexual in content, and with all such things from my employ at Johnson's Garage, I have blocked it from memory. Sadly, I have not been able to get the memory of emptying the beer can barrel purged from the cache...
I imagine that, at some time in the future when our economy continues to suck, I'll go back to working the pumps at some fuel depot in the suburban wasteland of North Raleigh. As I pump precious hydrogen into a plastic fuel cell car for some bugger who got rich fleecing retirement accounts, the price guage will read ¥2009, and I'll think, 2009, huh? What a bummer that year was.
Face it: 2009 was the capstone year in a fairly shitty decade all around (at least for Americans). When we collectively ruminate on our past--passing around a shotglass of "water" leaking out the ass end of a car at the old hydrogen station--and try to determine where things went wrong, we'll all point to the era from the Y2K scare to the economic shitstorm of the late 00's and say... yeppp... 2009... not a good year. (We won't be able to label the whole decade a pile of shit, because we still won't know what to call it. Naughties? Oughties? DoubleOs? How about "the Shitties?").
Despite the dystopia we are sprinting towards, there is some hope in turning over into a new decade; if nothing else, we'll at least know what to call it. And things can't really get worse, right?
Right?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The Furniture Store of Tomorrow
I lost my IKEA virginity this weekend.
I thought, living 160 miles away from the nearest IKEA, I could let my guard down and not worry about the Swedish furniture retailer's siren song. But then friends started doing it. They would tell me about their amazing experiences, but in such vague terms it was hard to "feel" it. But me? Nah, I don't mind waiting and collecting my furniture a little bit here, a little bit there. I have a couch--what more do I need? A couple side tables... alright! Good enough! Some homemade plywood stuff from many years ago...
Well, it turns out I needed some chairs in a hurry. And I don't have the kind of vehicle that would allow hauling hoity-toity pre-assembled furniture. And I don't have gobs of money spilling out of my wallet. And... damn, Scandanavians are cool. And I love Swedish meatballs. I got sucked in. Who could blame me?
IKEA is amazing. Scary and amazing. They could lay tracks for an automatic peoplemover and charge admission. This is definitely The Furniture Store of Tomorrow. Every step in this store is carefully planned and choreographed; every font selected on purpose; every color used to elicit a specific emotion or reaction. Information pods. Puzzle stations. "Shortcuts." Lost? Look at the map--it tells you exactly where you will be next, even if it doesn't help you know where you are now. The in-store Swedish cuisine restaurant (and cafe!) promises to be around the next bend, never more than an overhead sign away. The peoplemover takes you right there, hands you a tray, and scoops you ten neat little meatballs before you realize you're not looking at furniture and home decor anymore.
But that's not even half of The Furniture Store of Tomorrow experience. That was just the opening act. Foreplay. A mere cattle chute before the big ride. When you finish your meatballs at 10:30 in the morning, you are strapped into a shopping cart that would only be commonplace to a European--all four wheels are independently swiveling! No fixed axles! You can shop around in perfect circles! Feel like pushing your cart sideways? At and angle? In constant pirhouttes? Please do! Steer your cart around the track with a stream of humanity. Grab your items. Watch the young newlywed brides and coeds and young moms in their casual Saturday shopping jeans. This place is paradise.
And now the big reveal, the money shot, the climax. You thought THAT was The Furniture Store of Tomorrow? That was just the salad course. That was just the introductory movie before the ride. You have not yet even penetrated the real experience. Welcome to the Self Service Furniture Warehouse. As the stream of humanity empties out into the sea of 3-story palette shelves, you drift into a Choose Your Own Adventure. Used to getting lost at Home Depot? You better get ready to hunker down here for a few days. If what lies behind you was choreographed within an inch of its life, the Self Storage Furniture Warehouse is purposely designed as a freeform free-for-all. Did you keep score with your IKEA half pencil on your IKEA scorecard? If not, you have a lot of searching to do. Forgot to grab an extra cart back there? Good luck navigating your purchases through the warehouse! Scale doesn't exist here. If IKEA sold houses or cars, they would be on the shelves, disassembled into "flat pack" boxes for your handling convenience. What can't IKEA flat pack? Is the Arc of the Covenant in here, and if so, is it in one box or two? Does it come in Alne Natural? Don't forget to compare the label on the box with that on the bin. It's on the sign.
The experience is not complete. Now you must wait in line... to leave. Rather than seeing long checkout lines as a liability, the Furniture Store of Tomorrow sees it as an opportunity to discourage you back into shopping. We have ATMs! We have a restaurant! A child care center! Restrooms! Comfy couches! YOU HAVE NO NEED TO LEAVE THE FURNITURE STORE OF TOMORROW. YOU ARE NOT DONE SHOPPING. START OVER. MORE MEATBALLS. MORE FURNITURE. YOU ARE MINE NOW.
I thought, living 160 miles away from the nearest IKEA, I could let my guard down and not worry about the Swedish furniture retailer's siren song. But then friends started doing it. They would tell me about their amazing experiences, but in such vague terms it was hard to "feel" it. But me? Nah, I don't mind waiting and collecting my furniture a little bit here, a little bit there. I have a couch--what more do I need? A couple side tables... alright! Good enough! Some homemade plywood stuff from many years ago...
Well, it turns out I needed some chairs in a hurry. And I don't have the kind of vehicle that would allow hauling hoity-toity pre-assembled furniture. And I don't have gobs of money spilling out of my wallet. And... damn, Scandanavians are cool. And I love Swedish meatballs. I got sucked in. Who could blame me?
IKEA is amazing. Scary and amazing. They could lay tracks for an automatic peoplemover and charge admission. This is definitely The Furniture Store of Tomorrow. Every step in this store is carefully planned and choreographed; every font selected on purpose; every color used to elicit a specific emotion or reaction. Information pods. Puzzle stations. "Shortcuts." Lost? Look at the map--it tells you exactly where you will be next, even if it doesn't help you know where you are now. The in-store Swedish cuisine restaurant (and cafe!) promises to be around the next bend, never more than an overhead sign away. The peoplemover takes you right there, hands you a tray, and scoops you ten neat little meatballs before you realize you're not looking at furniture and home decor anymore.
But that's not even half of The Furniture Store of Tomorrow experience. That was just the opening act. Foreplay. A mere cattle chute before the big ride. When you finish your meatballs at 10:30 in the morning, you are strapped into a shopping cart that would only be commonplace to a European--all four wheels are independently swiveling! No fixed axles! You can shop around in perfect circles! Feel like pushing your cart sideways? At and angle? In constant pirhouttes? Please do! Steer your cart around the track with a stream of humanity. Grab your items. Watch the young newlywed brides and coeds and young moms in their casual Saturday shopping jeans. This place is paradise.
And now the big reveal, the money shot, the climax. You thought THAT was The Furniture Store of Tomorrow? That was just the salad course. That was just the introductory movie before the ride. You have not yet even penetrated the real experience. Welcome to the Self Service Furniture Warehouse. As the stream of humanity empties out into the sea of 3-story palette shelves, you drift into a Choose Your Own Adventure. Used to getting lost at Home Depot? You better get ready to hunker down here for a few days. If what lies behind you was choreographed within an inch of its life, the Self Storage Furniture Warehouse is purposely designed as a freeform free-for-all. Did you keep score with your IKEA half pencil on your IKEA scorecard? If not, you have a lot of searching to do. Forgot to grab an extra cart back there? Good luck navigating your purchases through the warehouse! Scale doesn't exist here. If IKEA sold houses or cars, they would be on the shelves, disassembled into "flat pack" boxes for your handling convenience. What can't IKEA flat pack? Is the Arc of the Covenant in here, and if so, is it in one box or two? Does it come in Alne Natural? Don't forget to compare the label on the box with that on the bin. It's on the sign.
The experience is not complete. Now you must wait in line... to leave. Rather than seeing long checkout lines as a liability, the Furniture Store of Tomorrow sees it as an opportunity to discourage you back into shopping. We have ATMs! We have a restaurant! A child care center! Restrooms! Comfy couches! YOU HAVE NO NEED TO LEAVE THE FURNITURE STORE OF TOMORROW. YOU ARE NOT DONE SHOPPING. START OVER. MORE MEATBALLS. MORE FURNITURE. YOU ARE MINE NOW.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
All Souls
Whatever became of Halloween? I remember a time when trick-or-treating was a time-honored tradition (whatever the hell that means). Suburban residential streets would be filled with little kids in plastic and fabric costumes with their baggies or pumpkin baskets or pillow cases swaying to and fro. Adult overseers would watch from the sidewalk as their little goblin and princess skittered up the driveway to the front door of some 70's Bradyesque monstrosity covered in plastic decorations and the salvaged remains of the smashed jackolanterns the neighborhood miscreants had tormented the night before. This is the way it worked. This is the fun that was Halloween. This was the kickoff of the Halloween-to-Easter Candy Season. This was the pinnacle of the elementary school haute couture fashion season. But now? I was at a party in a neighborhood where there were hundreds of pleasant suburban houses mere feet apart--in fact, my first comment upon seeing this neighborhood months before was, "wow, this would be a great place to trick-or-treat!" It was one of those neighborhoods you could go back over two or three times with a different costume and really rake in the calories. But despite beautiful weather and the obligatory "we're open for business" lit jackolantern, we had all of four small groups of trick-or-treaters. Maybe ten kids, tops. Those were the kind of numbers we were used to living in a dark brown house at the top of a dead-end street on a hill back in Massachusetts (it was nearly impossible to even see the house as your approached it). It was pathetic.
What is motivating this cultural shift? Are parents fearful for their kids' safety? I remember when I was a kid there was the real danger of cars running over trick-or-treaters, but last night I could have driven up the front lawns of every damn house in the subdivision and not hit a single costumed child. And there were the annual scares about needles and razor blades in Halloween candy, which required parents to forensically analyze every Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup for hairline cuts in the wrappers, and immediately throw out anything that was in a hand-assembled giftie bag rather than a factory-sealed wrapper. Is it the religious component? All those families that don't believe in celebrating a "devil's holiday"... as if the devil wasn't the Mars corporation that makes the candy they're all eating at the church's alternative "harvest social" that night? Want a conversation stopper on Halloween? Just repeat what the little girl in front of me in line at the Rite Aid said to the woman at the counter when asked what she was going to be tonight: "oh, we don't celebrate Halloween." Silence. Perhaps it's the childhood obesity epidemic? Parents worry about one night of chocolate orgy but are oblivious as Jacob and Madison swim in Mountain Dew and chocolate milk the rest of the year. What happened to kids having a fun fucking night of dressing up and eating candy while supervised by vigilant parents in a non-threatening, non-satanic envionment? Is that so fucking hard that we have to just stop doing it? You people suck.
Anyway, I was a moth wrapped in spiderweb being attacked by a huge stuffed spider. The idea was great but the execution was lacking, and it broke my #1 rule for costumes: I have to be able to sit down. So the spider spent most of the evening on the floor, and my antennae kinda hurt, so for most of the evening I was a ball of spider web.
What is motivating this cultural shift? Are parents fearful for their kids' safety? I remember when I was a kid there was the real danger of cars running over trick-or-treaters, but last night I could have driven up the front lawns of every damn house in the subdivision and not hit a single costumed child. And there were the annual scares about needles and razor blades in Halloween candy, which required parents to forensically analyze every Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup for hairline cuts in the wrappers, and immediately throw out anything that was in a hand-assembled giftie bag rather than a factory-sealed wrapper. Is it the religious component? All those families that don't believe in celebrating a "devil's holiday"... as if the devil wasn't the Mars corporation that makes the candy they're all eating at the church's alternative "harvest social" that night? Want a conversation stopper on Halloween? Just repeat what the little girl in front of me in line at the Rite Aid said to the woman at the counter when asked what she was going to be tonight: "oh, we don't celebrate Halloween." Silence. Perhaps it's the childhood obesity epidemic? Parents worry about one night of chocolate orgy but are oblivious as Jacob and Madison swim in Mountain Dew and chocolate milk the rest of the year. What happened to kids having a fun fucking night of dressing up and eating candy while supervised by vigilant parents in a non-threatening, non-satanic envionment? Is that so fucking hard that we have to just stop doing it? You people suck.
Anyway, I was a moth wrapped in spiderweb being attacked by a huge stuffed spider. The idea was great but the execution was lacking, and it broke my #1 rule for costumes: I have to be able to sit down. So the spider spent most of the evening on the floor, and my antennae kinda hurt, so for most of the evening I was a ball of spider web.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Ides of October
Apparently Massachusetts is getting snow today, as evidenced by the football game I'm watching live from Foxborough. Today. October 18. Not even Halloween. Barely past Columbus Day. Ouch, folks. Does anyone question why I'm in North Carolina now?
Sure, it's cold here in Raleigh today, too--in fact, when I went out this morning to shop for miscellaneous household creature comforts at 10ish, it smelled a little snowy here, too. But the cold we're talking is, like, 50's. Sweatshirt weather. Slow-setting intermittant wipers weather. Reading the Sunday paper indoors weather. Not taking the TV out to the stoop to watch football weather.
Man, the Titans are really blowing. Sorry, Tennessee.
I'm amidst my inter-exam period, which means no need to do anything this weekend (aside from laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, cat feeding, bill paying, cat pee deorderizing, etc., etc.). The next exam is Schematic Design, which is entirely drawing-based, meaning there really isn't "material" to "study." So perhaps I can get through the holidays with a minimal amount of exam study time suck.
To fill in that gap of otherwise enjoyable free time, I will be preparing a presentation on Raleigh planning for my professional colleagues, Christmas shopping (no idea where Christmas will be yet...), and outfitting my apartment one item at a time (I bought a plant today!). And keeping the volleyball torch going as long as possible...
Sure, it's cold here in Raleigh today, too--in fact, when I went out this morning to shop for miscellaneous household creature comforts at 10ish, it smelled a little snowy here, too. But the cold we're talking is, like, 50's. Sweatshirt weather. Slow-setting intermittant wipers weather. Reading the Sunday paper indoors weather. Not taking the TV out to the stoop to watch football weather.
Man, the Titans are really blowing. Sorry, Tennessee.
I'm amidst my inter-exam period, which means no need to do anything this weekend (aside from laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, cat feeding, bill paying, cat pee deorderizing, etc., etc.). The next exam is Schematic Design, which is entirely drawing-based, meaning there really isn't "material" to "study." So perhaps I can get through the holidays with a minimal amount of exam study time suck.
To fill in that gap of otherwise enjoyable free time, I will be preparing a presentation on Raleigh planning for my professional colleagues, Christmas shopping (no idea where Christmas will be yet...), and outfitting my apartment one item at a time (I bought a plant today!). And keeping the volleyball torch going as long as possible...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Autumn commences
The seasonal shift from summer to autumn here in North Carolina is pretty abrupt, though by no means unpleasant. Heading into Labor Day weekend, it was consistently 90+ for highs with high humidity... reflective windshield screens were a necessity if you wanted to leave work without spending fifteen minutes blasting the AC before you could touch the steering wheel. Coming out of Labor Day, the temperatures dropped a full notch on the belt... warm, but certainly more pleasant, and noticeably more comfortable. Just last week, in time for the official end of summer, we dropped another full belt hole and now it's definitely feeling fallish--cool mornings, cold sand on the volleyball court, more leafy debris on my windshield, more desperate-acting bugs... I opened my front door to leave for work earlier this week and who should greet me on my front mat but a lone camel cricket looking for a fight! I kicked him away before he could sproing into my apartment--these cold blooded (or non blooded?) animals don't have much fight in them when it's 55 degrees out!
Eight weeks after my last exam, I finally got my results back--PASS. So, what could have been an enduring legacy of the mild social revolution of the summer turned out to have no grip; no failed exam, no permanently deformed finger... just memories that will stay as long as memories do. Oh, and an obscene credit card statement.
Next exam--number four of seven--is a week from tomorrow, and this one promises to be a corker. The subject matter is both broad and deep, and there are three--three!--graphic exercises, each of about an hour, and considered some of the hardest throughout all the exams. So if I'm bound to fail something, this will be the one. If I pass... I'm due to be a registered, licensed architect by next May. I mean, assuming I pass the other three exams that follow.
Volleyball and vball-associated friendships have been going well. First Friday a couple days ago, Korean BBQ yesterday, and an exceptionally pleasant night of doing nothing but drinking wine and watching Netflix alone last night. Best of all worlds. Now study, clean, study, TV, study, nap, study....
Eight weeks after my last exam, I finally got my results back--PASS. So, what could have been an enduring legacy of the mild social revolution of the summer turned out to have no grip; no failed exam, no permanently deformed finger... just memories that will stay as long as memories do. Oh, and an obscene credit card statement.
Next exam--number four of seven--is a week from tomorrow, and this one promises to be a corker. The subject matter is both broad and deep, and there are three--three!--graphic exercises, each of about an hour, and considered some of the hardest throughout all the exams. So if I'm bound to fail something, this will be the one. If I pass... I'm due to be a registered, licensed architect by next May. I mean, assuming I pass the other three exams that follow.
Volleyball and vball-associated friendships have been going well. First Friday a couple days ago, Korean BBQ yesterday, and an exceptionally pleasant night of doing nothing but drinking wine and watching Netflix alone last night. Best of all worlds. Now study, clean, study, TV, study, nap, study....
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Of Crystals and Crickets
The Big Clean from my last post did not get wrapped up quite as tightly and quickly as I had hoped... apparently the scale of a "Big" clean changes considerably when you've increased the size of your home by 300%. My 200SF studio in Cambridge could be big cleaned easily in two days... I guess that means I should have budgeted a whole week for this one? Well, it continued into a second weekend at least, and more on that in a moment.
Naturally, after investing some time and capital into a steam cleaner rental, something had to happen to overturn all the value realized in short order. So it went like this: on September 10, I'm about to step out the door for work. I was several minutes early (which meant I had not shaven or had to pack a lunch) and Fenway intercepts me at the door in grand tripping hazard fashion. Rather than simply waiting for his customary three treats thrown in Olympic curling style across our faux wood floor, he started a meow... long, drawn out, low, and very unhappy-sounding. Definitely not normal. As he kept up the pained meow, I went to check on the litter box (feeling that perhaps he was getting uppity about how often I clean out the box and rather than retaliate with a huge cat poop on the floor as he usually does, he was going to launch a protest march instead). Well, the surprise was that it didn't need to be cleaned out at all, really, and there was one tiny little petrified piddle in the brand spanking new litter I has put in several days before. Ruh roh. Someone's having trouble peeing. Sure enough, when I went back to check on him, he had his belly exposed, his leg drawn up like he was trying an upside-down pee, and crying. Short of pointing at his penis and saying "it's broken, Dad! It's broken!!" I think I had all the information I needed from his end.
I was able to get him an appointment at the vet--his first since moving to Raleigh--that afternoon. The kindly vet and vet assistants left me in the exam room as they took him back to the equipment to, presumably, squeeze his bladder until he peed. Or perhaps there's a secret pee button I don't know about? Do cats have prostates? Anyway, after a fifteen minute wait, the vet came back and told me Fenway had "a lot going on" in his urine... I hope no one ever tells me I have a "lot going on" in any of my bodily fluids, because it just sounds horrible. It turns out that not only does he have a urinary tract infection, but he has bladder crystals (apparently common in boy cats) that may be impeding his flow, or even ready to cinch it off completely. Well, that explains the tiny pee nugget in his box and the pained meow at the door this morning...
So what does this all have to do with the Big Clean? (Fenway is fine now, by the way, after ten days of antibiotics and special crystal-melting kibble.) The morning Fenway stopped me at the door, I'd sniffed a cat-musky scent around the apartment--the same smell most of his old toys have. Eww, I thought, hope that dissipates quickly, especially since I spent ALL LABOR DAY WEEKEND making smells leave my apartment. Well, it turns out that urinary infected boy cats spray their foul and pungent fluids all over the place. And carpets are preferred. Nice, clean, bouncy, accommodating carpets. So, within a week of their first major clean in over a year, my carpets now smell like super-concentrated cat pee. With crystals.
Suffice it to say, the Big Clean took to the outdoors last weekend. My chief outdoor task was to reclaim my patio closet, which had become a zoo habitat enclosure for large insects and spiders (you know, the dark little room where zoo creatures go to be depressed and disappoint wide-eyed children). I'd known since I moved in that a family of camel crickets had squatters rights in the closet--they all but helped me move my bike and spare kitty box in when I arrived. But I have to admit their presence bothered me. And their otherworldliness, as noted in a blog post last year. So part of the Big Clean was to evict the whole damn lot of them and once again feel comfortable that I could flip a circuit breaker in the closet's electrical panel without being beset by two dozen little aliens with huge tail thingies and heads and eyes and mouths and pokey things...
I'll spare you the grim details but will take credit for trying to remove them peacefully at first. They very much loved that closet, with its reliable moisture, darkness, half-open cans of wet paint, and smaller moving things to snack on. So they were resistant, obstinant even. A couple actually stood up to me--if they had convinced even ten others to do so simultaneously, it would have been enough to get me running off the patio flailing my hands like a little girl. But me and the broom got the job done, and until they regroup and mount a counter offensive, my closet is once again part of my human habitat to mistreat and ignore as I see fit.
Naturally, after investing some time and capital into a steam cleaner rental, something had to happen to overturn all the value realized in short order. So it went like this: on September 10, I'm about to step out the door for work. I was several minutes early (which meant I had not shaven or had to pack a lunch) and Fenway intercepts me at the door in grand tripping hazard fashion. Rather than simply waiting for his customary three treats thrown in Olympic curling style across our faux wood floor, he started a meow... long, drawn out, low, and very unhappy-sounding. Definitely not normal. As he kept up the pained meow, I went to check on the litter box (feeling that perhaps he was getting uppity about how often I clean out the box and rather than retaliate with a huge cat poop on the floor as he usually does, he was going to launch a protest march instead). Well, the surprise was that it didn't need to be cleaned out at all, really, and there was one tiny little petrified piddle in the brand spanking new litter I has put in several days before. Ruh roh. Someone's having trouble peeing. Sure enough, when I went back to check on him, he had his belly exposed, his leg drawn up like he was trying an upside-down pee, and crying. Short of pointing at his penis and saying "it's broken, Dad! It's broken!!" I think I had all the information I needed from his end.
I was able to get him an appointment at the vet--his first since moving to Raleigh--that afternoon. The kindly vet and vet assistants left me in the exam room as they took him back to the equipment to, presumably, squeeze his bladder until he peed. Or perhaps there's a secret pee button I don't know about? Do cats have prostates? Anyway, after a fifteen minute wait, the vet came back and told me Fenway had "a lot going on" in his urine... I hope no one ever tells me I have a "lot going on" in any of my bodily fluids, because it just sounds horrible. It turns out that not only does he have a urinary tract infection, but he has bladder crystals (apparently common in boy cats) that may be impeding his flow, or even ready to cinch it off completely. Well, that explains the tiny pee nugget in his box and the pained meow at the door this morning...
So what does this all have to do with the Big Clean? (Fenway is fine now, by the way, after ten days of antibiotics and special crystal-melting kibble.) The morning Fenway stopped me at the door, I'd sniffed a cat-musky scent around the apartment--the same smell most of his old toys have. Eww, I thought, hope that dissipates quickly, especially since I spent ALL LABOR DAY WEEKEND making smells leave my apartment. Well, it turns out that urinary infected boy cats spray their foul and pungent fluids all over the place. And carpets are preferred. Nice, clean, bouncy, accommodating carpets. So, within a week of their first major clean in over a year, my carpets now smell like super-concentrated cat pee. With crystals.
Suffice it to say, the Big Clean took to the outdoors last weekend. My chief outdoor task was to reclaim my patio closet, which had become a zoo habitat enclosure for large insects and spiders (you know, the dark little room where zoo creatures go to be depressed and disappoint wide-eyed children). I'd known since I moved in that a family of camel crickets had squatters rights in the closet--they all but helped me move my bike and spare kitty box in when I arrived. But I have to admit their presence bothered me. And their otherworldliness, as noted in a blog post last year. So part of the Big Clean was to evict the whole damn lot of them and once again feel comfortable that I could flip a circuit breaker in the closet's electrical panel without being beset by two dozen little aliens with huge tail thingies and heads and eyes and mouths and pokey things...
I'll spare you the grim details but will take credit for trying to remove them peacefully at first. They very much loved that closet, with its reliable moisture, darkness, half-open cans of wet paint, and smaller moving things to snack on. So they were resistant, obstinant even. A couple actually stood up to me--if they had convinced even ten others to do so simultaneously, it would have been enough to get me running off the patio flailing my hands like a little girl. But me and the broom got the job done, and until they regroup and mount a counter offensive, my closet is once again part of my human habitat to mistreat and ignore as I see fit.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Big Clean
Once again I'm amidst a disruptive moving of furniture and hardcore cleaning of apartment whilst the sound of tennis pops from my TV. Spring cleaning, French Open. Traditional moving day, Wimbledon. Fall cleaning, US Open. This is, apparently, the best thing I can do with a 3-day weekend...
Yesterday was my first amateur use of a steam carpet cleaner. Actually, this one didn't involve steam unless I was using it wrong--just hot water, expensive soapy additive, a vibrating bristle brush, and a hell of a lot of patience. I was hoping for magic, I think--drag the Rug Doctor (trademark) across the carpet and all of a sudden... new carpet! Carpet I would want to roll around on nekkid and take a big ole sniff of. But, the reality was less spectacularly pseudo-sexual. What the Rug Doctor was able to do was take out the camoflage-patterned stain-and-Resolve-bleached matrix that was making it difficult to know the true color of the carpet. Or at least subdue it. What the Rug Doctor could not do, though, was make the highly-trafficked portions of the carpets at the doorways look like the rest of the carpet, which was the "magic" goal. So it looks like I'm due to be embarassed by my carpets for as long as they're there. I will say, though, after letting it all dry overnight, there is marked improvement in the look and feel. They are now ready to once again serve as the substrate for huge clumps of hair and cat barf. The stuff that came out of that tank--out of the carpet--was... well, let's just say I can't believe I let my feet touch those carpets before. Eww.
I had the opportunity to talk to a 56-year-old version of myself at the bar last night. Yes, I went to a bar on Big Clean weekend--my fatigue and disappointment with Day 1 required some medication. I brought my flash cards along to study as I imbibed, and the older gentleman sitting on the neighboring bar stool caught sight and decided to start up a comversation loosely founded on architecture. Naturally I looked a little distracted to begin with, but he was already an untold number of drinks towards oblivion, so he continued. Apparently, he's single and renting at 56. Very displeased with the quality of housing in the area. In a job with a potentially limited future and concerned about being laid off. So, I thought, better keep this conversation going and see where I'll be in 25 years. It didn't sound fun. Mostly boring, with a good dose of bitterness and regret. Is there hope for Warren, my 56-year-old self? Let's hope so. The world needs to cure its Warrens.
Yesterday was my first amateur use of a steam carpet cleaner. Actually, this one didn't involve steam unless I was using it wrong--just hot water, expensive soapy additive, a vibrating bristle brush, and a hell of a lot of patience. I was hoping for magic, I think--drag the Rug Doctor (trademark) across the carpet and all of a sudden... new carpet! Carpet I would want to roll around on nekkid and take a big ole sniff of. But, the reality was less spectacularly pseudo-sexual. What the Rug Doctor was able to do was take out the camoflage-patterned stain-and-Resolve-bleached matrix that was making it difficult to know the true color of the carpet. Or at least subdue it. What the Rug Doctor could not do, though, was make the highly-trafficked portions of the carpets at the doorways look like the rest of the carpet, which was the "magic" goal. So it looks like I'm due to be embarassed by my carpets for as long as they're there. I will say, though, after letting it all dry overnight, there is marked improvement in the look and feel. They are now ready to once again serve as the substrate for huge clumps of hair and cat barf. The stuff that came out of that tank--out of the carpet--was... well, let's just say I can't believe I let my feet touch those carpets before. Eww.
I had the opportunity to talk to a 56-year-old version of myself at the bar last night. Yes, I went to a bar on Big Clean weekend--my fatigue and disappointment with Day 1 required some medication. I brought my flash cards along to study as I imbibed, and the older gentleman sitting on the neighboring bar stool caught sight and decided to start up a comversation loosely founded on architecture. Naturally I looked a little distracted to begin with, but he was already an untold number of drinks towards oblivion, so he continued. Apparently, he's single and renting at 56. Very displeased with the quality of housing in the area. In a job with a potentially limited future and concerned about being laid off. So, I thought, better keep this conversation going and see where I'll be in 25 years. It didn't sound fun. Mostly boring, with a good dose of bitterness and regret. Is there hope for Warren, my 56-year-old self? Let's hope so. The world needs to cure its Warrens.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Time to move in?
It's the end of August, which is about when, a year ago, I started to awaken from the fog of the initial trauma of completely destabilizing my life and transitioned into the slow burn of disappointment and dissatisfaction that characterized the following six to eight months. It was almost exactly a year ago that I had my couch delivered to me just moments before I ran out the door to the company ballpark picnic in Durham (which is tonight again) and then headed to Richmond the following day for my first visit with the Southern Lipchaks since moving.
In that year since pulling the shrink wrap off my couch, very little has changed here at 931-102 Washington Street (physically/aesthetically speaking, I mean). Same hooks and pictures on the walls. Same magnets on the fridge. Same obsolete electronics on the plywood thing I call my entertainment center... the place looks as unappreciated of a living space as it ever did. I could probably--couch accepted--pile everything I own back up into the same size truck I rented to bring it all down here. And do it as quickly as I moved it all in. My life here lacks a comfortable permanence or a permanent comfort...
I think it's time to resolve to stay here. There was always that chance--especially when I was laid off for a week back in April--that the new colony would not be a permanent one; call it Roanoke II. But now? Where could I go that would not be just as difficult (or more so) than staying here in Raleigh? I have a growing pool of friends thanks to the Y, volleyball, AIA, etc., and still see teaching at NCSU as a likely possibility in the future. People are starting to recognize my face (even if I haven't been so forward as to introduce myself by name). I'm starting to learn where "the scene" is and when to be in it and when to avoid it...
This apartment may not be--very likely won't be--a long term home, but it has to start getting appointed by things that make it homey and hold some meaning for me. When I finally do break down and invite friends over, I don't want them taken aback by the barrenness of the place and the consequent suspicion about the barrenness of my personality. The fact that I don't own the place shouldn't prevent me from making into my own.
Unrelated side note: grocery shopping is MUCH more fun when NC State students are back in town. Yes, more crowded, but crowded with good-looking youngins. I'll wait an extra few minutes in line if it means I can stare a little.
In that year since pulling the shrink wrap off my couch, very little has changed here at 931-102 Washington Street (physically/aesthetically speaking, I mean). Same hooks and pictures on the walls. Same magnets on the fridge. Same obsolete electronics on the plywood thing I call my entertainment center... the place looks as unappreciated of a living space as it ever did. I could probably--couch accepted--pile everything I own back up into the same size truck I rented to bring it all down here. And do it as quickly as I moved it all in. My life here lacks a comfortable permanence or a permanent comfort...
I think it's time to resolve to stay here. There was always that chance--especially when I was laid off for a week back in April--that the new colony would not be a permanent one; call it Roanoke II. But now? Where could I go that would not be just as difficult (or more so) than staying here in Raleigh? I have a growing pool of friends thanks to the Y, volleyball, AIA, etc., and still see teaching at NCSU as a likely possibility in the future. People are starting to recognize my face (even if I haven't been so forward as to introduce myself by name). I'm starting to learn where "the scene" is and when to be in it and when to avoid it...
This apartment may not be--very likely won't be--a long term home, but it has to start getting appointed by things that make it homey and hold some meaning for me. When I finally do break down and invite friends over, I don't want them taken aback by the barrenness of the place and the consequent suspicion about the barrenness of my personality. The fact that I don't own the place shouldn't prevent me from making into my own.
Unrelated side note: grocery shopping is MUCH more fun when NC State students are back in town. Yes, more crowded, but crowded with good-looking youngins. I'll wait an extra few minutes in line if it means I can stare a little.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tidal Wave
NC State begins a new academic year this week, so the city has endured a storm surge of unshaven, T-shirt wearing post-adolescent boys and doe-eyed, short-short wearing coeds in recent weeks. Naturally, I'm ambivalent. Traffic is getting worse (and not just volume... these teenage boys are just DUMB drivers, and I suspect the girls aren't much better). Bars will be even more full and noisy, food will be scarcer, diseases rampant, pedestrian accidents at all time highs...
The influx of students--some tens of thousands city-wide--changes the energy dynamic of the city quite profoundly. You can smell the hormones in the air--all that repressed sexual energy being released by huge crowds of horny teenagers. It motivates them. They all jump in their late-90's model Toyotas and Hondas and cruise downtown or to Glenwood, talking overly loud, in the hopes that SOMETHING will happen. There's hope and wonderment and palpable potential. If someone could harness that energy for good (and not eeevil), the world would be a different place.
All this energy comes with a tinge of saddness to someone like me. You realize quickly that all this is NOT FOR YOU. This energy that these kids are pouring out to each other... well, you are background. You're a tree. A parked car. Scenery. Stage work. Obstacle, perhaps? And in the process, they drown out the energy that may be coming to you from outside their youthful horde. They are a distraction and an attractive nuisance.
Prepare for the flood.
The influx of students--some tens of thousands city-wide--changes the energy dynamic of the city quite profoundly. You can smell the hormones in the air--all that repressed sexual energy being released by huge crowds of horny teenagers. It motivates them. They all jump in their late-90's model Toyotas and Hondas and cruise downtown or to Glenwood, talking overly loud, in the hopes that SOMETHING will happen. There's hope and wonderment and palpable potential. If someone could harness that energy for good (and not eeevil), the world would be a different place.
All this energy comes with a tinge of saddness to someone like me. You realize quickly that all this is NOT FOR YOU. This energy that these kids are pouring out to each other... well, you are background. You're a tree. A parked car. Scenery. Stage work. Obstacle, perhaps? And in the process, they drown out the energy that may be coming to you from outside their youthful horde. They are a distraction and an attractive nuisance.
Prepare for the flood.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
regrets of a 31-year old bachelor
This summer I've been hanging out with my volleyball friends, who range in age from slightly younger (1-2 years) to significantly younger (6+ years), and it's been great fun. But as I listen to the stories of youthful indiscretion (perpetrated years ago or as recently as last week), I have to admit that I held myself back from a lot of fun (though potentially risky) behavior during my college and post-college years.
I realize that some people get exciting late in life--called "late bloomers," as if we've been locked in a state of physical pre-adolescence and are getting our flood of hormones decades late. The tragedy with late blooming is that people your own age don't have the patience for someone who wants to act like a 23-year old, and the 23-year olds aren't very taken with the idea of a creepy old guy hanging around. It's enough to put a halt to the bloom altogether.
My perception in high school and college was that my priorities were the right ones--hard work, industriousness, proper amounts of sleep, reverence for parents, respectful distance from women, generally clean living, no substance abuse, personal betterment, etc. etc. What a mistake! Who was feeding me that BS? I blame TV and movies, to be honest. And no thanks to you, Ben and Maggie--you dropped the ball as older siblings when it came to showing me the upside of personal corruption. By the time I became a frat boy, I was inpenetrable... literally uncorruptible. The effort it would have taken to undo the damage of my prolonged chastity was too great for anyone, and the payoff for them would only have been some funny photos and bragging rights.
So here's the lesson to any young sprout reading this blog, which should be balanced with whatever your parents or teachers or preachers are telling you: don't give up your opportunities to be bad, naughty, negligent, corrupt, stupid, and risky. There is some payoff to being responsible, but don't believe that there is no payoff to being irresponsible. And the latter payoff diminishes quickly the older you get. I did as much right as I could and it didn't save me from having regrets. Make sure you have some fun while there's fun to be had.
I realize that some people get exciting late in life--called "late bloomers," as if we've been locked in a state of physical pre-adolescence and are getting our flood of hormones decades late. The tragedy with late blooming is that people your own age don't have the patience for someone who wants to act like a 23-year old, and the 23-year olds aren't very taken with the idea of a creepy old guy hanging around. It's enough to put a halt to the bloom altogether.
My perception in high school and college was that my priorities were the right ones--hard work, industriousness, proper amounts of sleep, reverence for parents, respectful distance from women, generally clean living, no substance abuse, personal betterment, etc. etc. What a mistake! Who was feeding me that BS? I blame TV and movies, to be honest. And no thanks to you, Ben and Maggie--you dropped the ball as older siblings when it came to showing me the upside of personal corruption. By the time I became a frat boy, I was inpenetrable... literally uncorruptible. The effort it would have taken to undo the damage of my prolonged chastity was too great for anyone, and the payoff for them would only have been some funny photos and bragging rights.
So here's the lesson to any young sprout reading this blog, which should be balanced with whatever your parents or teachers or preachers are telling you: don't give up your opportunities to be bad, naughty, negligent, corrupt, stupid, and risky. There is some payoff to being responsible, but don't believe that there is no payoff to being irresponsible. And the latter payoff diminishes quickly the older you get. I did as much right as I could and it didn't save me from having regrets. Make sure you have some fun while there's fun to be had.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Job 1:21
I am not a grateful enough person. I think this is because everything I do seems to require way too much effort--I am reminded of a Simpson's episode in which Homer is constructing a do-it-yourself backyard barbeque pit, which he screws up royally. In his cry of frustration he exclaims, "WHY MUST LIFE BE SO HARD?!!!" Everytime I do something, that's how I feel. Yes, those who know me, I see your eyes rolling. Yes, I'm smart. Yes, I went to Harvard. Yes, I am able to avoid failure most of the time. Yes, things are generally good--I don't live in a third world country, I am employable, I have skills, no major medical issues, but nothing seems to come easy or effortlessly. I feel like I work twice as hard as everyone else to stay at the same level of satisfaction.
Like I said, I am not a grateful enough person. I am not the kind of person who is thankful when the Lord giveth, but I definitely notice when the Lord taketh away. I should realize that the things the Lord taketh from me are pretty minor--like the use of a middle finger for a few weeks--but it's hard for me to appreciate the status quo. Who relishes the ability to type unencumbered by a splint? Who appreciates the luxury of having a job to return to every Monday that does better than pay the bills? Who lives in the moment of a kiss and remembers to savor the excitement? Who, having lost these things at one time or another, truly values these experiences and is grateful for them? Sadly, not me. And it disappoints me.
Part of growing up and growing old should be learning to appreciate the value of fleeting experiences, even those that are so common that they don't seem fleeting. How much better would life be if you truly appreciated those everyday things that just go your way without a thought? I need to grow up.
Like I said, I am not a grateful enough person. I am not the kind of person who is thankful when the Lord giveth, but I definitely notice when the Lord taketh away. I should realize that the things the Lord taketh from me are pretty minor--like the use of a middle finger for a few weeks--but it's hard for me to appreciate the status quo. Who relishes the ability to type unencumbered by a splint? Who appreciates the luxury of having a job to return to every Monday that does better than pay the bills? Who lives in the moment of a kiss and remembers to savor the excitement? Who, having lost these things at one time or another, truly values these experiences and is grateful for them? Sadly, not me. And it disappoints me.
Part of growing up and growing old should be learning to appreciate the value of fleeting experiences, even those that are so common that they don't seem fleeting. How much better would life be if you truly appreciated those everyday things that just go your way without a thought? I need to grow up.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Much, much better
Things have been going much, much better in Raleigh these days, and perhaps surprisingly I can attribute most of that to the simple decision to start playing a second night of volleyball every week, on the outdoor courts not far from home. Much appreciation goes to the person who convinced me (tempted me? coerced me?) to show up the first week. All of a sudden weeknights are not just for studying and TV anymore. In fact, my weekends have become the more boring, antisocial parts of my week these days (that bears some correction, hopefully soon).
I'm headed for home for a long weekend next weekend, and very excited to see the family, hug my sister, play some horse corral volleyball, sleep outdoors, hopefully grab a drink with the Cantabrigians on Friday, reintroduce myself to Felicity (youngest neice), meet my eldest neice's new significant, get retribution for a water-balloon soaking on Memorial Day, and in general commune with the fam.
And get this: I passed my last architecture licensure exam! Yes, I took it many, many weeks ago, but I finally got word that I passed yesterday. It was a structures exam, which meant I had to re-learn about two years worth of college curriculum (ten years ago!) in the span of three months. Oh, but actually more... 80% of the exam was on lateral forces, which we never learned in college. Hazaa! My next exam is August 7, and at the risk of cursing myself, it should be a much easier exam. No math. No real technical terminology. Things directly applicable to work I've done. And then... I'll be nearly halfway done!
I'm headed for home for a long weekend next weekend, and very excited to see the family, hug my sister, play some horse corral volleyball, sleep outdoors, hopefully grab a drink with the Cantabrigians on Friday, reintroduce myself to Felicity (youngest neice), meet my eldest neice's new significant, get retribution for a water-balloon soaking on Memorial Day, and in general commune with the fam.
And get this: I passed my last architecture licensure exam! Yes, I took it many, many weeks ago, but I finally got word that I passed yesterday. It was a structures exam, which meant I had to re-learn about two years worth of college curriculum (ten years ago!) in the span of three months. Oh, but actually more... 80% of the exam was on lateral forces, which we never learned in college. Hazaa! My next exam is August 7, and at the risk of cursing myself, it should be a much easier exam. No math. No real technical terminology. Things directly applicable to work I've done. And then... I'll be nearly halfway done!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sheets
I purchased new bed sheets yesterday, for the first time in several years.
I was very proud of myself those several years ago, acquiring my first full set of Queen-sized bedding (with blanket!). Previous to that I had been using my 1970's-era trippy bed spread from my childhood, which had delaminated in many places and been... relaminated in others. Not a proud blanket by the end of its life. Coupled with mismatched fitted sheets stolen from home, my bed was definitely an unprofessional mess. Renting a tiny studio in Cambridge meant that, God forbid I ever had a visitor, my ridiculous bed with its threadbare 70's blankie would be the elephant in the room.
I forgot where I bought my first "adult" bedding... perhaps Sears at the Cambridgeside Galleria? I remember there was a collection of "hip" bedding from some prematurely-commercialized fashion designer or DIY hunkie or TV chef or something, and one appealed to me because it had orange (one of few colors I have confidence in seeing correctly with my colorblind eyes) but also had slivers of just about every other color that standard big-box bedding can come in. I would never have to worry about matching decor colors, because if it isn't in there, it isn't out there. I bought the set and it was a famous addition to my studio apartment--made me feel all growed up.
The trouble with owning only one set of bedding is that you can't rotate out parts that need a rest from constant use. The blanket was fine for prolonged periods (though I think I curdled the inner padding during the first wash, which has been lumpy forevermore), the pillowcases could share their load with the shams, and the flat sheet would pretty much retreat when it felt overstressed. The fitted sheet, though... what a life. Abuse from the cat alone was demoralizing, but my constant use wore at the elastic until it just couldn't hold onto the mattress anymore. Making the bed often meant restretching that poor fitted sheet over the most highly-trafficked mattress corner.
Unsurprisingly, moving to Raleigh did not improve the lot of my old bedding. It did, however, provide a separate bedroom (with a door!) in which my bedding was able to coast a bit... So a mattress corner was revealed once in a while (every night)? No problem! No need to impress me! That hole the cat dug into the sheet? Not a biggie. That weird stain left when the sheet got caught in the vacuum cleaner whilst I cleared it of cat hair? Ugly and tough to explain, sure, but no need to worry. This coordinated team forged by some trendy personality many years ago was starting to act like slovenly, fattening baseball retirees. No ambition. No professionalism. A bare mattress was a regular occurence. Pillows had to be double-bagged. The flat sheet would literally hop off the bed and refuse to work. It was rough.
In my unexpected boredom yesterday, I decided it was time to bring fresh blood on the team. I drove up to Target assuming that I would find a replacement sheet set with enough hipness to mesh in with the blanket--hell no I was not buying another blanket!--for a reasonable price. I guess my concept of what "reasonable" means when buying big square pieces of cloth with folded, sewn edges did not match Target's... even on sale, sheet sets seem wildly overpriced given the materials and labor that go into them. And hip? Trendy? Fashionable? Uh uh. Plain. Solid. Cotton. No graphics. No orange. Not even sheets with Target logos on them. My choices were thread count and if I wanted a polyester blend or a bamboo rayon blend. White, beige, green, blue, black, and red. It's like an ice cream truck that only sells popsicles.
I chose beige, mostly because 1) white? eew. 2) my blanket is orange and my walls are dark green (I think), so what else works? 3) the chances of fucking up beige are pretty slim. Thread count was my only other option, and I think I blew it. Yes, I know a higher thread count is preferable. I also know that the price jumps about ten to fifteen dollars per level. The pawed-over fabric samples that hang under the 600, 400, 300, and 250 signs do not feel $10 apart. In fact, the 300 felt the worst of all (and, somehow, was the cheapest!). I decided that the samples were not good justification and went with the cheap, "easy-care" 300. After a night on the new sheets, feeling like I was sleeping on the exam chair at the doctor's office, I have to believe that better sheets exist, and maybe even for a reasonable price... either that or I need to go to Walmart's craft department and pick myself up some fabric to make new sheets from. But no longer do I have to nag my bedding into performing its function, and I had a full--if itchy--night of sleep without ever seeing a bare mattress corner.
I was very proud of myself those several years ago, acquiring my first full set of Queen-sized bedding (with blanket!). Previous to that I had been using my 1970's-era trippy bed spread from my childhood, which had delaminated in many places and been... relaminated in others. Not a proud blanket by the end of its life. Coupled with mismatched fitted sheets stolen from home, my bed was definitely an unprofessional mess. Renting a tiny studio in Cambridge meant that, God forbid I ever had a visitor, my ridiculous bed with its threadbare 70's blankie would be the elephant in the room.
I forgot where I bought my first "adult" bedding... perhaps Sears at the Cambridgeside Galleria? I remember there was a collection of "hip" bedding from some prematurely-commercialized fashion designer or DIY hunkie or TV chef or something, and one appealed to me because it had orange (one of few colors I have confidence in seeing correctly with my colorblind eyes) but also had slivers of just about every other color that standard big-box bedding can come in. I would never have to worry about matching decor colors, because if it isn't in there, it isn't out there. I bought the set and it was a famous addition to my studio apartment--made me feel all growed up.
The trouble with owning only one set of bedding is that you can't rotate out parts that need a rest from constant use. The blanket was fine for prolonged periods (though I think I curdled the inner padding during the first wash, which has been lumpy forevermore), the pillowcases could share their load with the shams, and the flat sheet would pretty much retreat when it felt overstressed. The fitted sheet, though... what a life. Abuse from the cat alone was demoralizing, but my constant use wore at the elastic until it just couldn't hold onto the mattress anymore. Making the bed often meant restretching that poor fitted sheet over the most highly-trafficked mattress corner.
Unsurprisingly, moving to Raleigh did not improve the lot of my old bedding. It did, however, provide a separate bedroom (with a door!) in which my bedding was able to coast a bit... So a mattress corner was revealed once in a while (every night)? No problem! No need to impress me! That hole the cat dug into the sheet? Not a biggie. That weird stain left when the sheet got caught in the vacuum cleaner whilst I cleared it of cat hair? Ugly and tough to explain, sure, but no need to worry. This coordinated team forged by some trendy personality many years ago was starting to act like slovenly, fattening baseball retirees. No ambition. No professionalism. A bare mattress was a regular occurence. Pillows had to be double-bagged. The flat sheet would literally hop off the bed and refuse to work. It was rough.
In my unexpected boredom yesterday, I decided it was time to bring fresh blood on the team. I drove up to Target assuming that I would find a replacement sheet set with enough hipness to mesh in with the blanket--hell no I was not buying another blanket!--for a reasonable price. I guess my concept of what "reasonable" means when buying big square pieces of cloth with folded, sewn edges did not match Target's... even on sale, sheet sets seem wildly overpriced given the materials and labor that go into them. And hip? Trendy? Fashionable? Uh uh. Plain. Solid. Cotton. No graphics. No orange. Not even sheets with Target logos on them. My choices were thread count and if I wanted a polyester blend or a bamboo rayon blend. White, beige, green, blue, black, and red. It's like an ice cream truck that only sells popsicles.
I chose beige, mostly because 1) white? eew. 2) my blanket is orange and my walls are dark green (I think), so what else works? 3) the chances of fucking up beige are pretty slim. Thread count was my only other option, and I think I blew it. Yes, I know a higher thread count is preferable. I also know that the price jumps about ten to fifteen dollars per level. The pawed-over fabric samples that hang under the 600, 400, 300, and 250 signs do not feel $10 apart. In fact, the 300 felt the worst of all (and, somehow, was the cheapest!). I decided that the samples were not good justification and went with the cheap, "easy-care" 300. After a night on the new sheets, feeling like I was sleeping on the exam chair at the doctor's office, I have to believe that better sheets exist, and maybe even for a reasonable price... either that or I need to go to Walmart's craft department and pick myself up some fabric to make new sheets from. But no longer do I have to nag my bedding into performing its function, and I had a full--if itchy--night of sleep without ever seeing a bare mattress corner.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
The year in review
As I noted in the previous blog post, my official start date of residence in the Land of the Pines was July 1, 2008. That was the day I drove the rental truck from... no, wait. I remember staying at a motel in New Jersey--this is when motels were slashing their rates because no one was going anywhere because gas prices were reaching their peak, but I had stupidly locked in my rate months earlier. I suppose I could have cancelled the reservation and saved a heap of money, but it's not easy to communicate that situation through a tiny little metal grille in 1/2" of bulletproof plexiglass. So that must have been June... 29? Then at Grandma's for the evening of June 30? Then into Raleigh on July 1? Yep, that sounds right. I remember being scared driving the truck the whole way down. At city driving speeds, it was just a standard shitbox rental truck clanging along the road. But take it on the highway, it would shake itself to pieces between 45 and 55 mph, meaning I either had to drive it faster than I was hoping or much, much slower... and if I opted for faster, I would somehow have to cross the threshold on the slow-down. The thing would literally shake enough--the whole thing, not just the engine--that I wouldn't have been surprised for big chunks to start falling off. It got so bad driving into town on US 64 that I had to pull over on the highway to collect myself... almost there.
The point was, even though I moved in July 1, I still had to fly back home and collect the cat and the car, so I wasn't a permanent fixture here until July 5th (thus avoiding the question of what the hell I'm supposed to do here on the 4th of July... which happens to be the first day two years ago that I came to Raleigh, during which I observed the festivities at the State House and even found Port City Java on Fayetteville Street open despite the holiday).
I underestimated the trauma involved in moving by a wide margin. I've never been especially sensitive to homesickness. When college started in Troy, NY, in 1996, the trauma of architecture education must have quickly superseded whatever homesickness I could have experienced. And for life thereafter, including grad school, I was never more than an hour from family. Even three months in Rome in 1999 was less traumatic--probably because it was so damn awesome and the trauma was spread out amongst twenty schoolmates that I knew fairly well. But this time, coming to Raleigh, it was all me and only me. Trying to tie down a job. Getting the car registered and inspected. Finding furniture. Finding a new doctor. Being stared at for walking. Being on edge with anxiety just about every day at work.
Things settled down in stages, but I would say I was still quite unhappy--or at least unsettled--through to Thanksgiving. I think that was my first trip home (actually a business trip to Cambridge a week or two earlier was my first time back in Mass.). At about the same time I gave up on slogging through the anxiety and re-started my anxiety meds. And I started a project at work that was more in line with my experience. Etc. etc.
It probably wasn't until three months ago, though, that I really started to feel like I had momentum here in Raleigh. That was about when I got laid off from work. Somehow an event that had the potential to really fuck up everything managed to solidify my resolve to stay here. Of course, the fact that I was back at work within a week and a half made the whole thing easier, and I'm not sure what the situation would have led to otherwise... but for once I was able to clarify that I had an identity here without my job being its central component.
Since then, I've met many new folks in town, been out more on weekends, corresponded with the leadership at NCSU School of Architecture, gotten active in the local professional organization, and all those other fun distractions that help keep a person from thinking about how hard their life is.
So, for future reference, it takes Paul Lipchak between 9 and 12 months to feel "at home" in a new place.
The point was, even though I moved in July 1, I still had to fly back home and collect the cat and the car, so I wasn't a permanent fixture here until July 5th (thus avoiding the question of what the hell I'm supposed to do here on the 4th of July... which happens to be the first day two years ago that I came to Raleigh, during which I observed the festivities at the State House and even found Port City Java on Fayetteville Street open despite the holiday).
I underestimated the trauma involved in moving by a wide margin. I've never been especially sensitive to homesickness. When college started in Troy, NY, in 1996, the trauma of architecture education must have quickly superseded whatever homesickness I could have experienced. And for life thereafter, including grad school, I was never more than an hour from family. Even three months in Rome in 1999 was less traumatic--probably because it was so damn awesome and the trauma was spread out amongst twenty schoolmates that I knew fairly well. But this time, coming to Raleigh, it was all me and only me. Trying to tie down a job. Getting the car registered and inspected. Finding furniture. Finding a new doctor. Being stared at for walking. Being on edge with anxiety just about every day at work.
Things settled down in stages, but I would say I was still quite unhappy--or at least unsettled--through to Thanksgiving. I think that was my first trip home (actually a business trip to Cambridge a week or two earlier was my first time back in Mass.). At about the same time I gave up on slogging through the anxiety and re-started my anxiety meds. And I started a project at work that was more in line with my experience. Etc. etc.
It probably wasn't until three months ago, though, that I really started to feel like I had momentum here in Raleigh. That was about when I got laid off from work. Somehow an event that had the potential to really fuck up everything managed to solidify my resolve to stay here. Of course, the fact that I was back at work within a week and a half made the whole thing easier, and I'm not sure what the situation would have led to otherwise... but for once I was able to clarify that I had an identity here without my job being its central component.
Since then, I've met many new folks in town, been out more on weekends, corresponded with the leadership at NCSU School of Architecture, gotten active in the local professional organization, and all those other fun distractions that help keep a person from thinking about how hard their life is.
So, for future reference, it takes Paul Lipchak between 9 and 12 months to feel "at home" in a new place.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
One year in the New Colony
I would love to write a long, humorous retrospective of the last 12 months in Raleigh... really, I would. And maybe I will. Just not tonight. After an AIA lecture at 7pm and speeding back on Glenwood Ave. to catch the tail end of beach volleyball at 9:30ish, and being up past midnight last night hanging out drinking at the PR with some cool folk, I'm a bit tired (plus, an approaching thunderstorm threatens to cut all internetting short). So there you go; we've come a long way in a year--a long way for me, anyway.
Thinking of you, sis. Hope everything went OK today.
Thinking of you, sis. Hope everything went OK today.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Busy month?
It kinda builds up from boring/slow...
First week in June: studying for Structures ARE
June 9: take ARE, go to volleyball @YMCA
June 16: volleyball @YMCA
June 17: volleyball @Jaycee Park (where's Lexi?)
June 18: moderating discussion on Identity of Place at AIA Theory Committee
June 21: Father's Day, trip to Grandma's (mistake?)
June 22: meet with Head of School of Architecture for NC State
June 23: volleyball @ YMCA (oh, there she is, whew)
June 24: lunch talk with boss about teaching, volleyball @Jaycee Park
June 26: trip to Cambridge for MIT business
June 27: Moore Square community charrette
June 28: Dad visit
June 29: more Dad visit
June 30: back to Cambridge for more meetings (damn! no volleyball @YMCA)
Yes, for those of you with lives (or kids), this probably seems like a very easily achievable schedule. For those who do not have lives such as myself, having something "extra" to do nearly every day for two weeks is exhausting! But it's a good thing to get used to... can't be boring forever, right? Looks like July might shape up to be un-boring, too. I'm especially enjoying volleyball, not only because of all the good-looking women who show up, but because it actually feels like SUMMER instead of just feeling HOT. Sand, heat, sweat, 80's music, cute girls in shorts, me sucking at volleyball--it's like the past I never had. Well, OK, there were a few nights at LXA that were close... but this is Raleigh, where I'm all on my own. This is progress.
First week in June: studying for Structures ARE
June 9: take ARE, go to volleyball @YMCA
June 16: volleyball @YMCA
June 17: volleyball @Jaycee Park (where's Lexi?)
June 18: moderating discussion on Identity of Place at AIA Theory Committee
June 21: Father's Day, trip to Grandma's (mistake?)
June 22: meet with Head of School of Architecture for NC State
June 23: volleyball @ YMCA (oh, there she is, whew)
June 24: lunch talk with boss about teaching, volleyball @Jaycee Park
June 26: trip to Cambridge for MIT business
June 27: Moore Square community charrette
June 28: Dad visit
June 29: more Dad visit
June 30: back to Cambridge for more meetings (damn! no volleyball @YMCA)
Yes, for those of you with lives (or kids), this probably seems like a very easily achievable schedule. For those who do not have lives such as myself, having something "extra" to do nearly every day for two weeks is exhausting! But it's a good thing to get used to... can't be boring forever, right? Looks like July might shape up to be un-boring, too. I'm especially enjoying volleyball, not only because of all the good-looking women who show up, but because it actually feels like SUMMER instead of just feeling HOT. Sand, heat, sweat, 80's music, cute girls in shorts, me sucking at volleyball--it's like the past I never had. Well, OK, there were a few nights at LXA that were close... but this is Raleigh, where I'm all on my own. This is progress.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Hot Season
I'm not sure if it's official, but it might as well be: the North Carolina Hot Season has begun. A year ago I was down this way on a long weekend trip to secure a home and get my foot in the door at architecture firms, and I remember the folks here telling me that the Hot Season had just started abruptly a few days before my arrival. I'm not sure it's been as abrupt this year... we've been consistently in the 80's for a few weeks now, except for a few odd days of 70's or (egad) upper 60's. But it looks like the transition to typical highs in the 90's is just around the corner, and will probably last until late September. You know, when summer is actually supposed to end?
I've heard a lot about the heat down here before and since my move, usually by northerners who have to imagine that there's something wrong with the place, or from the small scattering of folks who lived down here once and found the heat and humidity remarkable. Having lived through the better part of last summer and now on the cusp of another, I have to say: yes, it gets fucking hot. And humid. And if I was an outdoor laborer, it would definitely change my perception of the livability here. But just the other day, for whatever reason, I was thinking about Halloween. Whenever I thought about fall holidays up north, it was always followed by: yeah, fun, but ugh--then winter. Now? Now I think: yeah, fun--oh yeah, and it'll be nice out! What a different world when some of the best holidays of the year are no longer mired in the dread of an imminent horrible winter! So, we bake during the summer like many do (Midwest, Las Vegas, your summers suck, too), and go for cold drinks and dinner under shady canopies, enjoying the excitement of seemingly daily, quickly-passing thunderstorms. And then we celebrate the end of the heat with an autumn that isn't a bummer.
Of course, with the return of warm weather come the side effects--bugs and mold. As I write this, I have several ants inexplicably crawling on my hand. I have an earwig that has made a home in the crack on the side of my laptop monitor (still waiting for the grand zap and puff of smoke that will be the simultaneous end of him and my laptop). The fuzzy red spiders have returned, as have the daddy long-legs. The shrimp/grasshopper/frog hybrid family I mentioned in an earlier post is prolific and fat; they've taken to exploring the exhaust pipe from their lair into my bathroom. And unless I keep the air conditioner set way too low for my budget, the moisture in the air will cause my refrigerator to grow a mold beard. Have you ever sprayed down your refrigerator with shower cleaner? It does the trick, but you won't be hungry for a while.
I haven't been able to enjoy the warm weather and communing with my seasonal "friends" as much as I would like, because I am preparing for my second Architecture Registration Exam--Structural Systems--which I will take June 9th. I've spent way too long studying, unfortunately, so I'm already starting to lose content despite a rigorous study schedule. I've done fairly well on Kaplan's practice exams, but I've lost my faith in them almost completely--they get answers to their own practice exams wrong. I didn't do as well on the NCARB practice questions (NCARB controls exam content). But, assuming I don't black out at the exam, I should be able to eek it out. And if not, I get six months to beat myself up about it before I take it again!
So, that's this month in a nutshell.
I've heard a lot about the heat down here before and since my move, usually by northerners who have to imagine that there's something wrong with the place, or from the small scattering of folks who lived down here once and found the heat and humidity remarkable. Having lived through the better part of last summer and now on the cusp of another, I have to say: yes, it gets fucking hot. And humid. And if I was an outdoor laborer, it would definitely change my perception of the livability here. But just the other day, for whatever reason, I was thinking about Halloween. Whenever I thought about fall holidays up north, it was always followed by: yeah, fun, but ugh--then winter. Now? Now I think: yeah, fun--oh yeah, and it'll be nice out! What a different world when some of the best holidays of the year are no longer mired in the dread of an imminent horrible winter! So, we bake during the summer like many do (Midwest, Las Vegas, your summers suck, too), and go for cold drinks and dinner under shady canopies, enjoying the excitement of seemingly daily, quickly-passing thunderstorms. And then we celebrate the end of the heat with an autumn that isn't a bummer.
Of course, with the return of warm weather come the side effects--bugs and mold. As I write this, I have several ants inexplicably crawling on my hand. I have an earwig that has made a home in the crack on the side of my laptop monitor (still waiting for the grand zap and puff of smoke that will be the simultaneous end of him and my laptop). The fuzzy red spiders have returned, as have the daddy long-legs. The shrimp/grasshopper/frog hybrid family I mentioned in an earlier post is prolific and fat; they've taken to exploring the exhaust pipe from their lair into my bathroom. And unless I keep the air conditioner set way too low for my budget, the moisture in the air will cause my refrigerator to grow a mold beard. Have you ever sprayed down your refrigerator with shower cleaner? It does the trick, but you won't be hungry for a while.
I haven't been able to enjoy the warm weather and communing with my seasonal "friends" as much as I would like, because I am preparing for my second Architecture Registration Exam--Structural Systems--which I will take June 9th. I've spent way too long studying, unfortunately, so I'm already starting to lose content despite a rigorous study schedule. I've done fairly well on Kaplan's practice exams, but I've lost my faith in them almost completely--they get answers to their own practice exams wrong. I didn't do as well on the NCARB practice questions (NCARB controls exam content). But, assuming I don't black out at the exam, I should be able to eek it out. And if not, I get six months to beat myself up about it before I take it again!
So, that's this month in a nutshell.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I Decree...
The following people no longer deserve to be in the news (CNN, I'm looking at you):
1. Sarah Palin
2. Sarah Palin's daughter
3. the guy who impregnated Sarah Palin's daughter
4. Sarah Palin's husband... actually, the whole damn family. All of them. And Grandpa McCain, too.
5. Dick Cheney/Karl Rove/Newt Gingrich/Rush Limbaugh (they're the same guy, actually)
6. the guy who invented Facebook
7. any baseball player accused of or proven to have taken steroids
8. OJ Simpson--no matter what he does
9. the guy who landed the plane in the Hudson. Like, kudos, dude! Now time to not be news.
10. anyone related to Somali piratetry
11. anyone who said swine flu was going to be a global pandemic. You were wrong, now sit down.
12. the Kardashian/Hilton/Lohan clusterfuck that is Hollywood
13. Elizabeth and John Edwards
14. Bill Clinton
15. Chelsea Clinton (should have stopped being news in 2000)
16. any and all Kennedys, unless Teddy dies
17. Miss America and all runners up
18. Donald Trump--for the love of GOD, let's stop feeding this guy's ego, people!
19. Omarosa? Like, really? Has anyone on earth been given more unearned publicity?
20. all reality show characters after their series' finales, in fact
21. Oprah. She may be great and all, but if I want to see her every day, I'll watch her show.
There are many more that don't immediately come to mind (thank God), so they get spared from my decree for now.
1. Sarah Palin
2. Sarah Palin's daughter
3. the guy who impregnated Sarah Palin's daughter
4. Sarah Palin's husband... actually, the whole damn family. All of them. And Grandpa McCain, too.
5. Dick Cheney/Karl Rove/Newt Gingrich/Rush Limbaugh (they're the same guy, actually)
6. the guy who invented Facebook
7. any baseball player accused of or proven to have taken steroids
8. OJ Simpson--no matter what he does
9. the guy who landed the plane in the Hudson. Like, kudos, dude! Now time to not be news.
10. anyone related to Somali piratetry
11. anyone who said swine flu was going to be a global pandemic. You were wrong, now sit down.
12. the Kardashian/Hilton/Lohan clusterfuck that is Hollywood
13. Elizabeth and John Edwards
14. Bill Clinton
15. Chelsea Clinton (should have stopped being news in 2000)
16. any and all Kennedys, unless Teddy dies
17. Miss America and all runners up
18. Donald Trump--for the love of GOD, let's stop feeding this guy's ego, people!
19. Omarosa? Like, really? Has anyone on earth been given more unearned publicity?
20. all reality show characters after their series' finales, in fact
21. Oprah. She may be great and all, but if I want to see her every day, I'll watch her show.
There are many more that don't immediately come to mind (thank God), so they get spared from my decree for now.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Free at Last, Free at... oh. Sure, I'll be there tomorrow.
Ok, so here's the scoop, because apparently I did not describe my situation clearly:
Yes, I got laid off on April 3. April 3 was the first Friday after the end of the first quarter, and of course my employers were reacting to some cash flow issue that could only be resolved by getting some long-term expenses off the books. Frankly, I was under the impression that Thursday afternoon was the best time to fire people, as they get a three-day weekend to absorb the shock, they can leave at a normal time of the day without arising much suspicion, etc. etc. The incovenience of being laid off on Friday morning is, I still had to commute on my last day, and it was a little hard to leave discreetly with my box of shit at 10am.
I did not leave in a huff, I did not burn bridges or go Jerry Maguire, I just put my personal stuff in a box and headed for home (and later to a bar that has a very good-looking daytime bar mistress). The firm had a severance package for me that would have allowed me a decent amount of time to get on my feet without losing an income. The "Plan" that I posted a while back was what I planned to do with my non-rushed unemployment, most importantly figuring out if sticking around Raleigh made any sense. I considered it a luxury to be able to travel, exercise, sleep, and all the things you would do on a vacation without digging a huge financial hole. So I began executing the plan.
By this last Monday, I had gotten most of my lazy screwing-off done and was becoming serious about the travel I wanted to do, studying for my next ARE, thinking about my various open projects, setting my alarm in the morning, that kind of thing. After exercising at the YMCA that morning, I ignored a phone call on my cellphone as I headed to the shower. I was about to launch into my day when I remembered the messsage, found out it was from my former employer, and listened to the message... knowing that I had not stolen anything or committed any other crimes when I left, I suspected immediately that the only reason they'd call me is that the layoff didn't "take." And sure enough, they offered to have me back. I deliberated for a couple hours with the help of my Ma and a promise by my landlord that I could negoatiate a shorter renewal for my lease given the uncertainty of my re-employment. I was back at my desk in less than 24 hours.
So, here I am, two weeks after being laid off, a week into being rehired, and basically nothing has changed. (Actually, in that time, Raleigh had its big annual tree pollen storm, and now we are basically fully leafed out.) My gracious siblings and parents have sent me care packages, which were great, but now I feel guilty because I pretty much got them for nothing! The folks at work were happy to see me back, but it only took a couple days for all that to work itself out and get back to normal. If I didn't document that this all happened, I think I and everyone else would be liable to forget. Come to think of it, I wish I had done something stupid or memorable during my week off so that this was, in some way, a stuff-changing experience. Oh well, maybe next time.
Here's the map of my last walk during unemployment (call it ITB-SW):
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=Hillsborough+St%2FNC-54+to:Ashe+Ave+to:Avent+Ferry+Rd+to:Pineview+Dr+to:Kaplan+Dr+to:Western+Blvd+to:35.789099,-78.674512+to:Groveland+Ave+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&geocode=%3BFVoNIgIdJLVP-w%3BFarvIQIdGrBP-w%3BFcDBIQIdBBZP-w%3BFUbiIQIdVvpO-w%3BFdTiIQIdwUBP-w%3BFQ8JIgId91VP-w%3B%3BFSMUIgIdCLxP-w%3B&hl=en&gl=us&mra=dpe&mrcr=1&mrsp=7&sz=15&via=1,2,4,5,6,7,8&dirflg=w&sll=35.781544,-78.67022&sspn=0.027469,0.055618&ie=UTF8&ll=35.778062,-78.679962&spn=0.054941,0.111237&z=14
Yes, I got laid off on April 3. April 3 was the first Friday after the end of the first quarter, and of course my employers were reacting to some cash flow issue that could only be resolved by getting some long-term expenses off the books. Frankly, I was under the impression that Thursday afternoon was the best time to fire people, as they get a three-day weekend to absorb the shock, they can leave at a normal time of the day without arising much suspicion, etc. etc. The incovenience of being laid off on Friday morning is, I still had to commute on my last day, and it was a little hard to leave discreetly with my box of shit at 10am.
I did not leave in a huff, I did not burn bridges or go Jerry Maguire, I just put my personal stuff in a box and headed for home (and later to a bar that has a very good-looking daytime bar mistress). The firm had a severance package for me that would have allowed me a decent amount of time to get on my feet without losing an income. The "Plan" that I posted a while back was what I planned to do with my non-rushed unemployment, most importantly figuring out if sticking around Raleigh made any sense. I considered it a luxury to be able to travel, exercise, sleep, and all the things you would do on a vacation without digging a huge financial hole. So I began executing the plan.
By this last Monday, I had gotten most of my lazy screwing-off done and was becoming serious about the travel I wanted to do, studying for my next ARE, thinking about my various open projects, setting my alarm in the morning, that kind of thing. After exercising at the YMCA that morning, I ignored a phone call on my cellphone as I headed to the shower. I was about to launch into my day when I remembered the messsage, found out it was from my former employer, and listened to the message... knowing that I had not stolen anything or committed any other crimes when I left, I suspected immediately that the only reason they'd call me is that the layoff didn't "take." And sure enough, they offered to have me back. I deliberated for a couple hours with the help of my Ma and a promise by my landlord that I could negoatiate a shorter renewal for my lease given the uncertainty of my re-employment. I was back at my desk in less than 24 hours.
So, here I am, two weeks after being laid off, a week into being rehired, and basically nothing has changed. (Actually, in that time, Raleigh had its big annual tree pollen storm, and now we are basically fully leafed out.) My gracious siblings and parents have sent me care packages, which were great, but now I feel guilty because I pretty much got them for nothing! The folks at work were happy to see me back, but it only took a couple days for all that to work itself out and get back to normal. If I didn't document that this all happened, I think I and everyone else would be liable to forget. Come to think of it, I wish I had done something stupid or memorable during my week off so that this was, in some way, a stuff-changing experience. Oh well, maybe next time.
Here's the map of my last walk during unemployment (call it ITB-SW):
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=Hillsborough+St%2FNC-54+to:Ashe+Ave+to:Avent+Ferry+Rd+to:Pineview+Dr+to:Kaplan+Dr+to:Western+Blvd+to:35.789099,-78.674512+to:Groveland+Ave+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&geocode=%3BFVoNIgIdJLVP-w%3BFarvIQIdGrBP-w%3BFcDBIQIdBBZP-w%3BFUbiIQIdVvpO-w%3BFdTiIQIdwUBP-w%3BFQ8JIgId91VP-w%3B%3BFSMUIgIdCLxP-w%3B&hl=en&gl=us&mra=dpe&mrcr=1&mrsp=7&sz=15&via=1,2,4,5,6,7,8&dirflg=w&sll=35.781544,-78.67022&sspn=0.027469,0.055618&ie=UTF8&ll=35.778062,-78.679962&spn=0.054941,0.111237&z=14
Sunday, April 5, 2009
A Walk Too Far
This is what I was planning:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=N+Person+St+to:Plainview+Ave+to:Dennis+Ave+to:Watkins+St+to:35.802813,-78.614838+to:Timber+Dr+to:N+Raleigh+Blvd+to:Brookside+Dr+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&hl=en&geocode=%3BFVceIgId3SJQ-w%3BFSdBIgIdx09Q-w%3BFZRHIgIddFRQ-w%3BFSA-IgIdAGlQ-w%3B%3BFWlYIgIdVHlQ-w%3BFYRTIgIdXolQ-w%3BFY8UIgIdkDlQ-w%3B&gl=us&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mrsp=5&sz=16&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,8&dirflg=w&sll=35.80203,-78.613358&sspn=0.013731,0.027809&ie=UTF8&ll=35.798254,-78.627863&spn=0.027463,0.055618&z=15
This is what happened:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=N+Person+St+to:Clifton+St+to:Plainview+Ave+to:Dennis+Ave+to:Watkins+St+to:Watkins+St+to:Timber+Dr+to:35.802796,-78.608208+to:Marlborough+Rd+to:Chatham+Ln+to:Chatham+Ln+to:Milburnie+Rd+to:New+Bern+Ave+to:New+Bern+Ave+to:N+East+St+to:Oakwood+Ave+to:N+Person+St+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&hl=en&geocode=%3BFVceIgId3SJQ-w%3BFSo8IgIdtEBQ-w%3BFSdBIgIdx09Q-w%3BFZRHIgIddFRQ-w%3BFSA-IgIdAGlQ-w%3BFcNOIgIdrG5Q-w%3BFWlYIgIdVHlQ-w%3B%3BFUdKIgId-Z1Q-w%3BFcwjIgIdWbFQ-w%3BFfUTIgIdn7BQ-w%3BFYYUIgIdNnRQ-w%3BFZb1IQIdaHRQ-w%3BFVD1IQIdpl5Q-w%3BFdQHIgIdoStQ-w%3BFfIHIgIdrCFQ-w%3BFZYTIgIdNyJQ-w%3B&gl=us&mra=dme&mrcr=0,1&mrsp=8&sz=16&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17&dirflg=w&sll=35.79888,-78.609602&sspn=0.013766,0.027809&ie=UTF8&ll=35.794564,-78.617048&spn=0.055069,0.111237&z=14
This is why:
Just after crossing Robin Hood Drive on Watkins, I see in my peripheral vision--mostly peripheral hearing, actually--a dog come over from the house on the right. After coming by me, the dog started running ahead of me and looking back at me, and I figured it was using me as an excuse to walk himself around the neighborhood, so I ignored him. Then I heard "Chief! Chief!" from a voice that could have been a child's or a petite woman's. At first I didn't turn around--this was between her (I was fairly certain it was a her) and the dog. After the dog had peed on several neighbors' bushes and appeared unlikely to heed the woman/child voice, and as I felt partially responsible for enabling the dog's flight, I turned around the address Chief's apparent owner. A petite woman, and cute at that. Good, I thought. A reason to involve myself.
Chief kept a margin of one or two street addresses ahead of cute woman, and I could tell from her look of anxiety that this was not a simple repeat of most Sunday afternoons. "Do you need help?" I asked. Her response left open a lot of room for interpretation: "I'm just trying to catch him." Ok, I thought. Not like I have anywhere else to be. So we both took off after the dog, her barefoot and calling out "Chief! Chief!" every few steps, alternating between running and walking, me trying to jog after the dog without looking too strangery lest it try to dodge me out of fear.
At Timber Drive, we got our first real opportunity to outsmart Chief. He ran to the right behind some houses and managed to get himself into a fenced dog lot with another dog. Barefoot Woman ran back there to get him--I was a little too concerned with prowling around other folks' backyards--and it looked to me like Chief was going to get cornered. I don't know what happened back there, but I do know that Chief came running out to my left, and despite my best efforts to position myself to scare him back towards Barefoot Woman, he got ahead of me and headed for Crabtree Boulevard. This is about where I started to lose track of where I was, though amazingly I was still following the "intended" path for the walk. This is also where I started to realize that, though this woman had no chance of catching Chief without some external intervention, I was definitely not helping the situation. I almost caught him, or rather cornered him, while he took a quick dump on the lawn of the office building at Timber and Crabtree, but fearing tackling a strange dog with poop hanging off his behind, I kept enough distance to let him run down Crabtree, crossing it twice as I tried to wave down oncoming vehicles to beware of dog.
At this point I verbalized my worry to my barefoot partner that I was perhaps causing more trouble than I was helping, to which she assented with a "maybe" as she started jogging again. "But we have to catch him in there [behind the guardrail of North Raleigh Boulevard] right now!" Chief was having none of it. He must have known that he had passed "bad dog" threshold a few blocks back, so he was going on a walkie HIS way before the inevitable incarceration. Naturally that meant crossing a major roadway against the light, with me following. Barefoot Woman waited for the light to change. Chief led us into the Capital Area Greenway, a bike path around the northern half of the city I "discovered" on my last walk. Chief smartly stayed about twenty feet or more ahead of us, sniffing and peeing as he went. At this point, Barefoot Woman acknowledged that my running after him was just propelling him away faster, so I decided the run was over and walked briskly instead. She continued to jog, as did Chief (which is to say, no, it was not just me being a stanger... this dog was in full-bore piss-off-my-owner mode).
About a quarter mile into the trail, Chief stopped and held back as a group of walkers and a bicyclist came at him from the other direction. The bicyclist in particular had aroused his concern. Barefoot Woman continued running after him and calling out "Chief! Chief!" I would have suspected that anyone with a brain could tell that the dog was a runaway, but this turd on his bike, as he rode by, said "That dog should be on a leash, you know." First of all, go fuck yourself! Second of all, no shit! Third of all, I'm about 100 feet back from all this... what makes you think I'm involved? Sadly, all I could get out of my face as he rode by was "Yes, I know." Not especially biting of a response.
Finally, at about a half mile in--I'm basically out of view of Chief and Barefoot Woman now--I hear voices up ahead and laughing. As I approach, I realize that the only thing that could stop Chief was his interest in other dogs, three of which were being walked on the trail. Barefoot Woman was able to grab his collar, and the nice folks walking the dogs gave her one of their leashes (apparently their dogs were slightly more trustworthy). I helped stabilize Chief as he was linked to the leash, and was looking for a good moment to interject, "not bad for being barefoot," a line I had been crafting since back at Timber Drive. By this point, though, Barefoot Woman had spent about twenty minutes doing something that should have taken two, and she looked eager to get back to Watkins Street. I wished her luck as she tore Chief away from his new friends, and she never turned back to see I kept on walking the path in the opposite direction. Of course, had I any idea where I was (which was still relatively close to my planned route) I would have followed her and gotten back to North Raleigh Boulevard. Instead, I ended up with a three-mile detour through the bad part of town.
And that's why.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=N+Person+St+to:Plainview+Ave+to:Dennis+Ave+to:Watkins+St+to:35.802813,-78.614838+to:Timber+Dr+to:N+Raleigh+Blvd+to:Brookside+Dr+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&hl=en&geocode=%3BFVceIgId3SJQ-w%3BFSdBIgIdx09Q-w%3BFZRHIgIddFRQ-w%3BFSA-IgIdAGlQ-w%3B%3BFWlYIgIdVHlQ-w%3BFYRTIgIdXolQ-w%3BFY8UIgIdkDlQ-w%3B&gl=us&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mrsp=5&sz=16&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,8&dirflg=w&sll=35.80203,-78.613358&sspn=0.013731,0.027809&ie=UTF8&ll=35.798254,-78.627863&spn=0.027463,0.055618&z=15
This is what happened:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=N+Person+St+to:Clifton+St+to:Plainview+Ave+to:Dennis+Ave+to:Watkins+St+to:Watkins+St+to:Timber+Dr+to:35.802796,-78.608208+to:Marlborough+Rd+to:Chatham+Ln+to:Chatham+Ln+to:Milburnie+Rd+to:New+Bern+Ave+to:New+Bern+Ave+to:N+East+St+to:Oakwood+Ave+to:N+Person+St+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&hl=en&geocode=%3BFVceIgId3SJQ-w%3BFSo8IgIdtEBQ-w%3BFSdBIgIdx09Q-w%3BFZRHIgIddFRQ-w%3BFSA-IgIdAGlQ-w%3BFcNOIgIdrG5Q-w%3BFWlYIgIdVHlQ-w%3B%3BFUdKIgId-Z1Q-w%3BFcwjIgIdWbFQ-w%3BFfUTIgIdn7BQ-w%3BFYYUIgIdNnRQ-w%3BFZb1IQIdaHRQ-w%3BFVD1IQIdpl5Q-w%3BFdQHIgIdoStQ-w%3BFfIHIgIdrCFQ-w%3BFZYTIgIdNyJQ-w%3B&gl=us&mra=dme&mrcr=0,1&mrsp=8&sz=16&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17&dirflg=w&sll=35.79888,-78.609602&sspn=0.013766,0.027809&ie=UTF8&ll=35.794564,-78.617048&spn=0.055069,0.111237&z=14
This is why:
Just after crossing Robin Hood Drive on Watkins, I see in my peripheral vision--mostly peripheral hearing, actually--a dog come over from the house on the right. After coming by me, the dog started running ahead of me and looking back at me, and I figured it was using me as an excuse to walk himself around the neighborhood, so I ignored him. Then I heard "Chief! Chief!" from a voice that could have been a child's or a petite woman's. At first I didn't turn around--this was between her (I was fairly certain it was a her) and the dog. After the dog had peed on several neighbors' bushes and appeared unlikely to heed the woman/child voice, and as I felt partially responsible for enabling the dog's flight, I turned around the address Chief's apparent owner. A petite woman, and cute at that. Good, I thought. A reason to involve myself.
Chief kept a margin of one or two street addresses ahead of cute woman, and I could tell from her look of anxiety that this was not a simple repeat of most Sunday afternoons. "Do you need help?" I asked. Her response left open a lot of room for interpretation: "I'm just trying to catch him." Ok, I thought. Not like I have anywhere else to be. So we both took off after the dog, her barefoot and calling out "Chief! Chief!" every few steps, alternating between running and walking, me trying to jog after the dog without looking too strangery lest it try to dodge me out of fear.
At Timber Drive, we got our first real opportunity to outsmart Chief. He ran to the right behind some houses and managed to get himself into a fenced dog lot with another dog. Barefoot Woman ran back there to get him--I was a little too concerned with prowling around other folks' backyards--and it looked to me like Chief was going to get cornered. I don't know what happened back there, but I do know that Chief came running out to my left, and despite my best efforts to position myself to scare him back towards Barefoot Woman, he got ahead of me and headed for Crabtree Boulevard. This is about where I started to lose track of where I was, though amazingly I was still following the "intended" path for the walk. This is also where I started to realize that, though this woman had no chance of catching Chief without some external intervention, I was definitely not helping the situation. I almost caught him, or rather cornered him, while he took a quick dump on the lawn of the office building at Timber and Crabtree, but fearing tackling a strange dog with poop hanging off his behind, I kept enough distance to let him run down Crabtree, crossing it twice as I tried to wave down oncoming vehicles to beware of dog.
At this point I verbalized my worry to my barefoot partner that I was perhaps causing more trouble than I was helping, to which she assented with a "maybe" as she started jogging again. "But we have to catch him in there [behind the guardrail of North Raleigh Boulevard] right now!" Chief was having none of it. He must have known that he had passed "bad dog" threshold a few blocks back, so he was going on a walkie HIS way before the inevitable incarceration. Naturally that meant crossing a major roadway against the light, with me following. Barefoot Woman waited for the light to change. Chief led us into the Capital Area Greenway, a bike path around the northern half of the city I "discovered" on my last walk. Chief smartly stayed about twenty feet or more ahead of us, sniffing and peeing as he went. At this point, Barefoot Woman acknowledged that my running after him was just propelling him away faster, so I decided the run was over and walked briskly instead. She continued to jog, as did Chief (which is to say, no, it was not just me being a stanger... this dog was in full-bore piss-off-my-owner mode).
About a quarter mile into the trail, Chief stopped and held back as a group of walkers and a bicyclist came at him from the other direction. The bicyclist in particular had aroused his concern. Barefoot Woman continued running after him and calling out "Chief! Chief!" I would have suspected that anyone with a brain could tell that the dog was a runaway, but this turd on his bike, as he rode by, said "That dog should be on a leash, you know." First of all, go fuck yourself! Second of all, no shit! Third of all, I'm about 100 feet back from all this... what makes you think I'm involved? Sadly, all I could get out of my face as he rode by was "Yes, I know." Not especially biting of a response.
Finally, at about a half mile in--I'm basically out of view of Chief and Barefoot Woman now--I hear voices up ahead and laughing. As I approach, I realize that the only thing that could stop Chief was his interest in other dogs, three of which were being walked on the trail. Barefoot Woman was able to grab his collar, and the nice folks walking the dogs gave her one of their leashes (apparently their dogs were slightly more trustworthy). I helped stabilize Chief as he was linked to the leash, and was looking for a good moment to interject, "not bad for being barefoot," a line I had been crafting since back at Timber Drive. By this point, though, Barefoot Woman had spent about twenty minutes doing something that should have taken two, and she looked eager to get back to Watkins Street. I wished her luck as she tore Chief away from his new friends, and she never turned back to see I kept on walking the path in the opposite direction. Of course, had I any idea where I was (which was still relatively close to my planned route) I would have followed her and gotten back to North Raleigh Boulevard. Instead, I ended up with a three-mile detour through the bad part of town.
And that's why.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The Plan (April)
- first weekend is a bye
- spend the remainder of April deciding if living in Raleigh/NC is a priority
o day trips and minivacations
o keeping up activities with AIAT
o volunteering at Habitat
o walks/hiking
o social activities
o YMCA – every day but Sunday
- front load on available benefits
o review benefit termination schedule, etc.
o reschedule physical to April
o schedule dental appointment
- review spending and opportunities for saving
o revise budget
- review how NC unemployment works for end of April registration
- continue studying for ARE contingent on passing BS exam
- begin writing with available free time
- Review job listings
o to ensure that immediate job search ramp-up is not advantageous
- spend the remainder of April deciding if living in Raleigh/NC is a priority
o day trips and minivacations
o keeping up activities with AIAT
o volunteering at Habitat
o walks/hiking
o social activities
o YMCA – every day but Sunday
- front load on available benefits
o review benefit termination schedule, etc.
o reschedule physical to April
o schedule dental appointment
- review spending and opportunities for saving
o revise budget
- review how NC unemployment works for end of April registration
- continue studying for ARE contingent on passing BS exam
- begin writing with available free time
- Review job listings
o to ensure that immediate job search ramp-up is not advantageous
Sunday, March 22, 2009
First Walk of the Spring
I decided to pretty much ditch studying for a second weekend... thanks for the excuse, ipod! Instead I took the new toy on a walk. This one was ITB - NNW. That's the Wake Forest Road/Capital Boulevard area. See here:
Map Link
Couldn't let a good, sunny weekend day go by after a week and a half of less-than-stellar weather.
Map Link
Couldn't let a good, sunny weekend day go by after a week and a half of less-than-stellar weather.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Thanks, AAA
Thank God I decided to jump in my car this afternoon to get some gas and a coffee instead of waiting until right before my exam tomorrow morning to start it up... because it was DEAD. Even the odometer and the clock had given up the ghost. It seems I had left the damn lights on, and it also seems that my lights do NOT have an automatic turning-off thing, as I had assumed (considering that this is not the first time I jumped in my car and flipped the lights on only to find that I just flipped the switch off instead, and yet still got the car to start). So, knowing no one here where I live, I was forced to call AAA. The wait was excruciating--not because I was stuck on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere, which I imagine is not a fun wait, but because it was getting on late afternoon on a Sunday, meaning my chances of finding an open mechanic or even a walk-to-able store that sells car batteries open for business was growing slimmer by the minute. The AAA guy finally showed up and said my battery had one volt left in it. He then hooked up his special plastic box and capow, the car started right up (well, I still had to turn the key, but it took almost no time to get the thing going is what I mean). And then I took a magical drive, circumnavigating the city's beltline, then heading out to the airport, getting lost somewhere west of Cary, as I'm prone to do, and finally after putting 1.5 hours of high-RPM time into the battery, I came home.
Hope she starts up tomorrow; I'd feel pretty pathetic to take a cab to the exam.
Hope she starts up tomorrow; I'd feel pretty pathetic to take a cab to the exam.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
What?
Can someone tell me how Rush Limbaugh was allowed to escape obscurity and irrelevance to once again be mentioned on an hourly basis on the news? Can he please stop saying what all those stupid, ignorant, and vapid people out there are thinking? Republicans, if you're sincere about revitalizing your party and being taken seriously by mainstream America again, get rid of this brick!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Too Lazy to Rewrite It
An excerpt from my recent e-mail to Ma:
Great to hear from you! The card did arrive, and thank you much! It’s going to be all I can do to remember that my birthday is in a week. I’ll make sure I spend some part of your gift on a dinner out or something. Yep, me, a gin & tonic, and a crossword puzzle—Happy 31!
My company started laying people off on Thursday. The fresh-out-of-college guy who I share a cubicle with got fired, sadly. The other four unlucky souls cut across the office populace. Not sure what criteria were being used or how I escaped, but the lightning was close enough to smell, for sure. My cubemate worked on the project I’m working on (the one I started on the second day), so in the short term there will be a lot of pieces to pick up. Both of the projects I’m working on are on their downhill slopes now, though, so I’m just hoping there’s something for me to jump on when they’re over. We’re not the only firm to lay folks off, so it’s not like there’re other jobs locally…
I started volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, so this Saturday was my first day out. It looked like the weather was going to be reasonable, but then the sun left, it spitted snow for a while, a little rain, then the sun came out again… it was like Massachusetts in March. The arrangement at this project site is good, because the house is sponsored by the local girl’s college, so there’s liable to always be about a half dozen or more cute women on site. Sadly my hammering-arm strength and comfort level on ladders are probably as bad or worse than the average college girl, so I won’t be impressing anyone. I met a woman who graduated from NC State’s architecture school a couple years ago, so there was much to talk about. She’s involved at the AIA and with NCSU, so I’m liable to see her again soon, I hope.
We had an appreciable snowfall last Tuesday, on Inauguration Day, and by appreciable I mean 4-5 inches. Probably a record around here. I was told when arriving here that snow would send everyone here into a tizzy, and I’m glad to see it didn’t, really. No completely moronic driving. School was cancelled and many offices closed, of course, giving hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians the chance to see our first black president inaugurated. I, on the other hand, did not see a cancellation notice posted for my office, so I went in. Only about fifteen people showed up, so it was a pretty relaxed day and we watched the inauguration on a really poor streaming feed on someone’s computer. Apparently an e-mail had gone out that the office was going to open at 10am, but I didn’t get it in time and was there at a normal hour. Then another e-mail went out saying the office would close (i.e., admin staff would go home) at 3pm. Then I was introduced to what is really peculiar about NC snow storms… the folks here won’t drive in snow, for sure, but they REALLY won’t drive when there could be ice on the roads. School was cancelled again the next day because—egads—there might be patches of ice! The gym was closed every morning for three days! I drove every day and maybe had two instances where I didn’t feel completely safe. So, I hope this is a once-a-season thing (generally its once or none at all) because things grind to a halt when people stop showing up to work for a few days.
Otherwise, just continuing to study for my exam. The stupid testing agency has managed to not send me an important form for several months now, preventing me from scheduling the exam date… great excuse to study more, bad for an ambitious schedule to get all the exams done ASAP.
I think I’ll excerpt this e-mail for my blog, so I don’t have to write all this again! Hope you don’t mind. Well, off to 60 Minutes, Simpson’s, some popcorn, and then more reading about daylighting. Fenway is curled up in the good seat of the couch wondering why I won’t keep the heat above 65… I will kick him for you at the next opportune moment.
Much love,
Paul
Great to hear from you! The card did arrive, and thank you much! It’s going to be all I can do to remember that my birthday is in a week. I’ll make sure I spend some part of your gift on a dinner out or something. Yep, me, a gin & tonic, and a crossword puzzle—Happy 31!
My company started laying people off on Thursday. The fresh-out-of-college guy who I share a cubicle with got fired, sadly. The other four unlucky souls cut across the office populace. Not sure what criteria were being used or how I escaped, but the lightning was close enough to smell, for sure. My cubemate worked on the project I’m working on (the one I started on the second day), so in the short term there will be a lot of pieces to pick up. Both of the projects I’m working on are on their downhill slopes now, though, so I’m just hoping there’s something for me to jump on when they’re over. We’re not the only firm to lay folks off, so it’s not like there’re other jobs locally…
I started volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, so this Saturday was my first day out. It looked like the weather was going to be reasonable, but then the sun left, it spitted snow for a while, a little rain, then the sun came out again… it was like Massachusetts in March. The arrangement at this project site is good, because the house is sponsored by the local girl’s college, so there’s liable to always be about a half dozen or more cute women on site. Sadly my hammering-arm strength and comfort level on ladders are probably as bad or worse than the average college girl, so I won’t be impressing anyone. I met a woman who graduated from NC State’s architecture school a couple years ago, so there was much to talk about. She’s involved at the AIA and with NCSU, so I’m liable to see her again soon, I hope.
We had an appreciable snowfall last Tuesday, on Inauguration Day, and by appreciable I mean 4-5 inches. Probably a record around here. I was told when arriving here that snow would send everyone here into a tizzy, and I’m glad to see it didn’t, really. No completely moronic driving. School was cancelled and many offices closed, of course, giving hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians the chance to see our first black president inaugurated. I, on the other hand, did not see a cancellation notice posted for my office, so I went in. Only about fifteen people showed up, so it was a pretty relaxed day and we watched the inauguration on a really poor streaming feed on someone’s computer. Apparently an e-mail had gone out that the office was going to open at 10am, but I didn’t get it in time and was there at a normal hour. Then another e-mail went out saying the office would close (i.e., admin staff would go home) at 3pm. Then I was introduced to what is really peculiar about NC snow storms… the folks here won’t drive in snow, for sure, but they REALLY won’t drive when there could be ice on the roads. School was cancelled again the next day because—egads—there might be patches of ice! The gym was closed every morning for three days! I drove every day and maybe had two instances where I didn’t feel completely safe. So, I hope this is a once-a-season thing (generally its once or none at all) because things grind to a halt when people stop showing up to work for a few days.
Otherwise, just continuing to study for my exam. The stupid testing agency has managed to not send me an important form for several months now, preventing me from scheduling the exam date… great excuse to study more, bad for an ambitious schedule to get all the exams done ASAP.
I think I’ll excerpt this e-mail for my blog, so I don’t have to write all this again! Hope you don’t mind. Well, off to 60 Minutes, Simpson’s, some popcorn, and then more reading about daylighting. Fenway is curled up in the good seat of the couch wondering why I won’t keep the heat above 65… I will kick him for you at the next opportune moment.
Much love,
Paul
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Checking in
Honestly, I have almost nothing to write about, aside from the war of wills between Fenway and I for the coveted left-hand-side couch seat. I don't understand... I like the seat because I can keep my laptop plugged in and it's next to the light so I can see the keyboard. What the hell does he need the laptop and light for? So now he's staring at me from the middle seat... you martyr, you!
I spent the day studying for exam #1 (Building Systems for me), and apparently I have no clue about acoustics and electricity. Otherwise, I'm not totally retarded. But I have a good long time to study and plan to keep up a regular pace, so I should be a-ok by exam time.
Now, how to avoid the Golden Globes? How is this entertainment?
I spent the day studying for exam #1 (Building Systems for me), and apparently I have no clue about acoustics and electricity. Otherwise, I'm not totally retarded. But I have a good long time to study and plan to keep up a regular pace, so I should be a-ok by exam time.
Now, how to avoid the Golden Globes? How is this entertainment?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
How to Begin?
Today marks my first semianniversary here in Raleigh; it's official--now I've been here for "a while." Much can happen in six months, like the self-immolation of the global economy, for example. Or the rising and falling of gas prices on a scale unseen since... before my birth? The turning of a red state blue. The rise to fame and subsequent fall into irrelevancy of some broad from Alaska. A new hope...
I feel better here now than I did just a few weeks ago, which is actually less comforting than it sounds. Even in the span of six months, I've had more than one other time that felt like I was turning a corner and feeling more at home. Is it possible that this is just another one of those corner turns that'll fizzle in a week or two? Of course I'm hoping not, and this time there are other conditions that could be driving the mood, including my anxiety meds (back on), caffeine (back on), and a general diminishing of day-to-day workplace stress resulting from a spacing out of deadlines and long blocks of time where there's an expectation that nothing comprehensive can get done because everyone is out here and there for the holidays.
To nail the New Year's cliche, I feel hopeful. I feel like I've seen the bottom of my situation here in Raleigh, and I think I've put things in play that will make me feel better about the move. I've signed up to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. I plan to be more involved in the local AIA chapter. I'm reading through Raleigh's new Draft Master Plan so I can remember why I was interested in this stuff in the first place, and then hopefully be helpful in critiquing the plan before it moves into its final draft. I have a new workstation in the office that won't hide me away in a corner so my coworkers might finally feel obligated to remember my name. I know how to change the plotter paper at work now. I started looking for a church I can stomach. I've been going out a little more often. I'll be resuming my exams very soon.
I guess I've found that when your day to day story is very thin, it's hard to accept that it's really what you're doing with your life. When my day to day story is work, TV, sleep, work, TV, sleep, it feels like I've been dispatched here for a temporary work assignment and see no reason to get settled. Like I'm living in a motel, and each thing or relationship I accumulate is one more thing I'll either have to throw out or lug back "home" when I leave. I can imagine the "colonial" mindset probably has a lot to do with that. I bet the economically-driven colonists to Virginia had the same trouble... you're from a totally different place, here to be opportunistic, wanting to travel light and not get too attached because, hell, the colony could be dead tomorrow. If you need to hop on the next boat to the mother country, better to not leave half of yourself behind. It's only once you trust the stability of your own situation in the new land that your narrative gets thicker and the new colony becomes part of your story.
Six months in and six months until my first major committment here is up--my lease--I can't say for sure how long my future here will be. As I said above, much can happen in six months. But it has become easier to imagine a future--life's little sidestories, at least--that has Raleigh as the backdrop. I can finally visualize scenarios here that would give me a satisfying life. So perhaps this is a real corner turned.
Happy New Year!
I feel better here now than I did just a few weeks ago, which is actually less comforting than it sounds. Even in the span of six months, I've had more than one other time that felt like I was turning a corner and feeling more at home. Is it possible that this is just another one of those corner turns that'll fizzle in a week or two? Of course I'm hoping not, and this time there are other conditions that could be driving the mood, including my anxiety meds (back on), caffeine (back on), and a general diminishing of day-to-day workplace stress resulting from a spacing out of deadlines and long blocks of time where there's an expectation that nothing comprehensive can get done because everyone is out here and there for the holidays.
To nail the New Year's cliche, I feel hopeful. I feel like I've seen the bottom of my situation here in Raleigh, and I think I've put things in play that will make me feel better about the move. I've signed up to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. I plan to be more involved in the local AIA chapter. I'm reading through Raleigh's new Draft Master Plan so I can remember why I was interested in this stuff in the first place, and then hopefully be helpful in critiquing the plan before it moves into its final draft. I have a new workstation in the office that won't hide me away in a corner so my coworkers might finally feel obligated to remember my name. I know how to change the plotter paper at work now. I started looking for a church I can stomach. I've been going out a little more often. I'll be resuming my exams very soon.
I guess I've found that when your day to day story is very thin, it's hard to accept that it's really what you're doing with your life. When my day to day story is work, TV, sleep, work, TV, sleep, it feels like I've been dispatched here for a temporary work assignment and see no reason to get settled. Like I'm living in a motel, and each thing or relationship I accumulate is one more thing I'll either have to throw out or lug back "home" when I leave. I can imagine the "colonial" mindset probably has a lot to do with that. I bet the economically-driven colonists to Virginia had the same trouble... you're from a totally different place, here to be opportunistic, wanting to travel light and not get too attached because, hell, the colony could be dead tomorrow. If you need to hop on the next boat to the mother country, better to not leave half of yourself behind. It's only once you trust the stability of your own situation in the new land that your narrative gets thicker and the new colony becomes part of your story.
Six months in and six months until my first major committment here is up--my lease--I can't say for sure how long my future here will be. As I said above, much can happen in six months. But it has become easier to imagine a future--life's little sidestories, at least--that has Raleigh as the backdrop. I can finally visualize scenarios here that would give me a satisfying life. So perhaps this is a real corner turned.
Happy New Year!
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