Untitled.
13 December 1998
![[ ]](http://mbpix.mushroom.net/19981213y.png)
dreams from the last couple of nights:
emily was thinking about using some sort of wax styling stuff in her hair, and i made some analogy as to why i dye my hair from time to time that seemed to be appropriate. later i was using this wax stuff, but my hair was long and jet black (but it seemed naturally so, not dyed). while styling it i noticed that my scalp had weird, multi-coloured squares and circles on it.
i was on a version of the nmh campus, and it had been raining heavily for some time. i was going somewhere with my dad and swede arstrohm and a couple of kids. i asked if we could stop by east hall on our way off campus so that i could get some dry shoes. swede was driving and took this out of the way road through the woods past lots of nifty houses. eventually we got to his house which was all computer controlled and he went up to a console and did a search for size 11 or 12 shoes in the house. i said that i don't wear leather, and that narrowed it down to a pair of big rubber rain boots.
i was at a beach with er!n and a couple of other friends. it had both the feel of a new england ocean beach and a private caribbean beach at the same time. after a while i decided that i had had my share of direct sunlight. when we were leaving there was some confusion over what car we had come in.
i was going to an audition for a play or a movie or something, but i really didn't know anything about it. when i got to the building that it was in, i saw donald murphy down the hall but pretended that i didn't recognize him at first. (and my eyes were having trouble focusing.) we talked for a while, and then i went up to the audition. the director handed me some sheets of paper and had me draw some diagrams with angles. then he asked me what i thought about when doing that. i said that i built some theatre sets in high school and it had that feel. he turned the paper over and there were in fact designs for sets on them, and you could see my drawings from the other side, and they matched up pretty well. he then told me that i would be auditioning for the part of the doctor, and gave me the script to look over. it seems like it was a musical with talking animals. the doctor had a pretty big role, but no songs.
there's two things that i really want to talk about today. they are the two things that i've probably talked about most here, but i feel like they need some more time, if only for the sake of thinking them through a little more clearly. they are of course work and love. (the third member of the triad would be creativity, and maybe i'll get to that too.)
i'm not sure where to start, so i'll just begin at the beginning (of today anyway, these threads go back to long before that). at 230 in the morning my pager went off. my first thought was that it was daniel with some emergency that i had to get up and solve. that seems to always be my first thought when i get paged, but of course that is what i bought the thing for. as it turns out, it wasn't daniel, but it was apropos to work. it was alex, telling me to find a new job. in his words: "i care about you too much to watch you deal with this shit again and again."
li has become my eight of swords. like my previous eight of swords (the manic depression that surrounded my feelings for allison), it tears me apart and i can't let go. and like allison, when my involvement finally ends, i know i won't look back with regrets, whatever it is that i've gotten out of it will have been worth it.
alex followed his pages with an email going into more depth. the first half was basically pointing out all of li's faults. nothing that i didn't already know certainly. i'm not sure i've ever heard it all so concisely packaged before though, especially from someone outside of the company. he said that it's obvious that daniel shouldn't be running a business, something i hear nearly every day from george already (and daniel, he said if you hassle him over this he'll have his brother and the trinity college crew team come beat the piss out of you, said tongue in check i'm assuming, but i'm not sure i'd push it). he told me that li's hurting me, i should turn in my letter of resignation and take my linux boxes back. he said: "you're a talented kid, you've got great skills, and daniel is WASTING you cuz he DOESN'T have a CLUE."
i also got email from mike isler today. he had emailed me a few weeks ago asking if i wanted to do any scripting work for pageworx. i kept putting off replying. he sent a followup, i put it off. today's letter said: "...maybe you want to work somewhere where daniel and the government (and dialup customers) aren't looming over your head. do fun stuff, don't worry about servers going down and waking up at 4:30 to fix things..."
i'm not so sure i want to leave li. but why is that exactly? occasionally i still feel good about about a problem i've solved or a piece of code i've written, but those feeling are further and further apart. is there still anything truly fulfilling to be gotten out of li? that i couldn't get somewhere else? i've said a million times before that i don't want a "real job". is li worth it just because it isn't? is it some sort of co-dependency? like staying in a bad relationship? i used to really care about li's clients. i don't think i do anymore. i used to care about li's employees. but by now they've either quit or know pretty well what they've gotten themselves into. so why?
alex pointed out that frogdesign is hiring programmers in austin. i remember checking out their open positions when i first started thinking about moving here. it would prolly be a really cool place to work. i prolly even have the skills. but. but i don't want a real job. but, if i were to leave li, i don't think i'd want to stay in the computer industry. but i'm going to be in school full time in a month, and they're prolly not looking to hire on a part-time basis. but i'm not really planning on staying in austin beyond next summer. (i did notice they have a branch in new york. er!n's prolly going to be in new york as of next summer. this leads me into topic number two...)
i watched that new show cupid on tv last night. i had never seen it before. i usually don't watch saturday night tv, but was feeling a little down, and tv, if nothing else, is a good distraction from life. this particular show however, did get me thinking about my own life. one of the main characters, claire, a couples therapist, is in a serious, long term relationship. her boyfriend, a journalist, is offered a job at the new york times (the show is set in chicago?). meanwhile her former teacher is in town promoting a book about how romantic love is a myth, it only gets you hurt, and it's not worth pursuing. claire begins to agree as she sees her own relationship falling apart, until her boyfriend leaves a message on her answering machine telling her that he loves her too much and won't take the job. she tells him that he has to follow his own dreams and take the job, but that admission restores her faith in love, so to speak, and they agree to try and make a long distance relationship work.
other than a few obvious parallels, what does this have to do with me? i'm not sure, but it got me thinking anyway. i really would like to be with er!n. how much of that is because i haven't seen her in a month and a half (absence makes the heart grow fonder and all of that) and how much is because of something else? i don't know. i do know that the feeling is not overwhelming. missing her does not consume my life and throw me into bouts of depression. i don't feel about her the way i felt about allison (although, i did really begin to fall in love with allison while i was in china for two months, half a world away). there is this commercial on tv for some stupid calvin klein fragrance. a man on a beach in black and white (very calvin klein already) says "i want someone who doesn't need me. someone who really, really wants me, but doesn't need me." that's the way i feel.
in a way, i've had a hard time reconciling this with my faerie tale notions of love. is it still the two of cups without that burning need? is it more the two of cups because it's actually about love and not desire?
i got email from er!n tonight, in which she told me one of the saddest stories i've ever heard. about how terrible her father was. i really just wanted to put my arms around her. and that is certainly hard at this distance.
i found out earlier today that my younger brother aaron broke up with his girlfriend of a few years. at 21 he's now started college and is following his dreams and feels it would be unfair to keep her waiting while he does so. i'm not sure how that really ties into my life. that relationship has been longer and more successful than any i have ever had. but aaron and i are not close, and i don't know how he feels about any of it.
and i can see my train of thought losing its way. guess that means it's time for bed. didn't get to creativity and the seven of cups. not sure i said all i wanted to about love. or work. needless to say, i'll keep thinking about it all though.
emily was thinking about using some sort of wax styling stuff in her hair, and i made some analogy as to why i dye my hair from time to time that seemed to be appropriate. later i was using this wax stuff, but my hair was long and jet black (but it seemed naturally so, not dyed). while styling it i noticed that my scalp had weird, multi-coloured squares and circles on it.
i was on a version of the nmh campus, and it had been raining heavily for some time. i was going somewhere with my dad and swede arstrohm and a couple of kids. i asked if we could stop by east hall on our way off campus so that i could get some dry shoes. swede was driving and took this out of the way road through the woods past lots of nifty houses. eventually we got to his house which was all computer controlled and he went up to a console and did a search for size 11 or 12 shoes in the house. i said that i don't wear leather, and that narrowed it down to a pair of big rubber rain boots.
i was at a beach with er!n and a couple of other friends. it had both the feel of a new england ocean beach and a private caribbean beach at the same time. after a while i decided that i had had my share of direct sunlight. when we were leaving there was some confusion over what car we had come in.
i was going to an audition for a play or a movie or something, but i really didn't know anything about it. when i got to the building that it was in, i saw donald murphy down the hall but pretended that i didn't recognize him at first. (and my eyes were having trouble focusing.) we talked for a while, and then i went up to the audition. the director handed me some sheets of paper and had me draw some diagrams with angles. then he asked me what i thought about when doing that. i said that i built some theatre sets in high school and it had that feel. he turned the paper over and there were in fact designs for sets on them, and you could see my drawings from the other side, and they matched up pretty well. he then told me that i would be auditioning for the part of the doctor, and gave me the script to look over. it seems like it was a musical with talking animals. the doctor had a pretty big role, but no songs.
there's two things that i really want to talk about today. they are the two things that i've probably talked about most here, but i feel like they need some more time, if only for the sake of thinking them through a little more clearly. they are of course work and love. (the third member of the triad would be creativity, and maybe i'll get to that too.)
i'm not sure where to start, so i'll just begin at the beginning (of today anyway, these threads go back to long before that). at 230 in the morning my pager went off. my first thought was that it was daniel with some emergency that i had to get up and solve. that seems to always be my first thought when i get paged, but of course that is what i bought the thing for. as it turns out, it wasn't daniel, but it was apropos to work. it was alex, telling me to find a new job. in his words: "i care about you too much to watch you deal with this shit again and again."
li has become my eight of swords. like my previous eight of swords (the manic depression that surrounded my feelings for allison), it tears me apart and i can't let go. and like allison, when my involvement finally ends, i know i won't look back with regrets, whatever it is that i've gotten out of it will have been worth it.
alex followed his pages with an email going into more depth. the first half was basically pointing out all of li's faults. nothing that i didn't already know certainly. i'm not sure i've ever heard it all so concisely packaged before though, especially from someone outside of the company. he said that it's obvious that daniel shouldn't be running a business, something i hear nearly every day from george already (and daniel, he said if you hassle him over this he'll have his brother and the trinity college crew team come beat the piss out of you, said tongue in check i'm assuming, but i'm not sure i'd push it). he told me that li's hurting me, i should turn in my letter of resignation and take my linux boxes back. he said: "you're a talented kid, you've got great skills, and daniel is WASTING you cuz he DOESN'T have a CLUE."
i also got email from mike isler today. he had emailed me a few weeks ago asking if i wanted to do any scripting work for pageworx. i kept putting off replying. he sent a followup, i put it off. today's letter said: "...maybe you want to work somewhere where daniel and the government (and dialup customers) aren't looming over your head. do fun stuff, don't worry about servers going down and waking up at 4:30 to fix things..."
i'm not so sure i want to leave li. but why is that exactly? occasionally i still feel good about about a problem i've solved or a piece of code i've written, but those feeling are further and further apart. is there still anything truly fulfilling to be gotten out of li? that i couldn't get somewhere else? i've said a million times before that i don't want a "real job". is li worth it just because it isn't? is it some sort of co-dependency? like staying in a bad relationship? i used to really care about li's clients. i don't think i do anymore. i used to care about li's employees. but by now they've either quit or know pretty well what they've gotten themselves into. so why?
alex pointed out that frogdesign is hiring programmers in austin. i remember checking out their open positions when i first started thinking about moving here. it would prolly be a really cool place to work. i prolly even have the skills. but. but i don't want a real job. but, if i were to leave li, i don't think i'd want to stay in the computer industry. but i'm going to be in school full time in a month, and they're prolly not looking to hire on a part-time basis. but i'm not really planning on staying in austin beyond next summer. (i did notice they have a branch in new york. er!n's prolly going to be in new york as of next summer. this leads me into topic number two...)
i watched that new show cupid on tv last night. i had never seen it before. i usually don't watch saturday night tv, but was feeling a little down, and tv, if nothing else, is a good distraction from life. this particular show however, did get me thinking about my own life. one of the main characters, claire, a couples therapist, is in a serious, long term relationship. her boyfriend, a journalist, is offered a job at the new york times (the show is set in chicago?). meanwhile her former teacher is in town promoting a book about how romantic love is a myth, it only gets you hurt, and it's not worth pursuing. claire begins to agree as she sees her own relationship falling apart, until her boyfriend leaves a message on her answering machine telling her that he loves her too much and won't take the job. she tells him that he has to follow his own dreams and take the job, but that admission restores her faith in love, so to speak, and they agree to try and make a long distance relationship work.
other than a few obvious parallels, what does this have to do with me? i'm not sure, but it got me thinking anyway. i really would like to be with er!n. how much of that is because i haven't seen her in a month and a half (absence makes the heart grow fonder and all of that) and how much is because of something else? i don't know. i do know that the feeling is not overwhelming. missing her does not consume my life and throw me into bouts of depression. i don't feel about her the way i felt about allison (although, i did really begin to fall in love with allison while i was in china for two months, half a world away). there is this commercial on tv for some stupid calvin klein fragrance. a man on a beach in black and white (very calvin klein already) says "i want someone who doesn't need me. someone who really, really wants me, but doesn't need me." that's the way i feel.
in a way, i've had a hard time reconciling this with my faerie tale notions of love. is it still the two of cups without that burning need? is it more the two of cups because it's actually about love and not desire?
i got email from er!n tonight, in which she told me one of the saddest stories i've ever heard. about how terrible her father was. i really just wanted to put my arms around her. and that is certainly hard at this distance.
i found out earlier today that my younger brother aaron broke up with his girlfriend of a few years. at 21 he's now started college and is following his dreams and feels it would be unfair to keep her waiting while he does so. i'm not sure how that really ties into my life. that relationship has been longer and more successful than any i have ever had. but aaron and i are not close, and i don't know how he feels about any of it.
and i can see my train of thought losing its way. guess that means it's time for bed. didn't get to creativity and the seven of cups. not sure i said all i wanted to about love. or work. needless to say, i'll keep thinking about it all though.