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

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?

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!