Who let this movie happen?

Why didn't anyone tell me that Happy Feet is the worst movie made in my lifetime? Sparky and I just finished watching it - barely. I lost count of how many messages contradicted themselves - or how long I waited for the movie to actually begin...

And if anyone understands exactly what age group or target audience this movie was aiming for, please fill me in... The movie goes back and forth from lame musical-style music video -> scary predators who promise to return, but never trouble us again -> to all kinds of ethnic stereotyping that would make Jar Jar Binks blush -> torture scenes where an old penguin gets strangled -> to a movie with a mission... and then back to, "Dance, I said!"

My head hurts and I want my 108 minutes back. I would do something that would make my head hurt less than what just happened... like maybe hit my head against the wall. clunk. clunk. clunk.

Do not adjust your sets

Sparklestone and I have recently begun watching Star Trek: Enterprise on DVD. A year or so ago, we watched the entire 7-season series of The Next Generation. We geeked hard and we loved it. Still do.

For those of you not up to our geekiness quotient, Enterprise is the story of Earth's space exploration work prior to Captain Kirk's adventures. The captain of this Enterprise is Captain Archer - played by Scott Bakula. That's right, Mr. Quantum Leap himself... it really works. The ship is much smaller than any we have known - especially the interior, the Computer is not very smart yet, and most of the people on the ship are humans. It's very easy to relate to this crew as they are the first Earth team to go a-exploring - they're more like us now than any of the other crews we know. The Captain is wearing a baseball cap with the ship's numbers embroidered on it, for crying out loud.

But the lighting is really incredible. During the second episode that we watched, Sparkle stopped the DVD and put in a different movie just to make sure that nothing was going wrong with his (big, fancy, new) TV. Sure enough, the lighting for the show is different. It reminds me very much of the lighting in the original Star Trek series. The light is muted and there is a lot of soft-focus action. It certainly achieves the feeling that we're watching a little bit of pre-history - that we're looking back on events that have already happened, but that we just haven't yet seen. And that's fascinating because Enterprise is still a possible *future* for us, not old news.

Hippies make me happy

Last night, our friends, The J's, took us to see Medeski, Martin, and Wood. It's only the second time in our almost 8-year friendship that we've gone to see music together. We have dramatically different musical tastes. They don't care for folk or country music and we don't care for squeaky frenetic jazz. Dave, Janette, and I can agree on some 80's post-punk/goth/rock bands, but even then, we're a few years apart from each other. The one single music show we attended together prior to last night was a Tori Amos show, in Omaha, in 2002 or so.

Last night the band played an acoustic show, which is reportedly rare for these guys. I had never listened to their music before because while The J's are fans, even they have told us that sometimes the music gets too crazy for them - so crazy that once even left an MMW show between sets.

We got to the show a little late last night, because The J's had to accept an offer on their house (woohoo!). By the time we got there, the only seats left were almost behind the band - we could only see the back of the percussionist (Mr. Martin, I believe) and the left side of the bassist (Wood). I don't know what kinds of instruments Medeski was playing, but I did notice a piano and some other huge keyboard on the stage when we walked in. Those guys played all KINDS of instruments! We got to watch the percussionist make some sounds out of a tambourine and a cymbal that had us asking, "How did he do that?" Most of the show was incredible - only about 15% of what I heard was the kind of music that really makes me feel like I'm completely crazy and makes me beg to be sedated. Admittedly, even less than I have the vocabulary to talk about music, I don't have the ear for comprehending that kind of sound. I don't like it. But they played "What'd I Say," by Ray Charles and it was just beyond exciting. I fully expected the audience to start singing "Aaaaayyyy, Ohhhhhh."

At the same table as us were 3 hippies - one of them had the whole look down to a T - hair pulled back in a head band, beard way too long and big for his face, big ol' baggy clothes on his skinny little body. They were SO fun to watch - dancing all over, hands pointing, yelling "YE-AH" in a big voice. It wasn't that kind of show - it was definitely a seated show, but these folks were just HAPPY to be happy. I had a really good time watching them. On the way home, Sparkle pointed out that it's amazing that current 20-something hippies look exactly like 20-something hippies looked 20 years ago. I certainly love to imagine Sparkle and all his friends, not quite 20 years ago, getting down, being happy, making other people happy like those folks made me smile last night.

Tiny little laughing at my tiny little self

I like Modest Mouse. Sparklestone doesn't always care for them so much because, as he says, "I just can't handle that manic angriness right this second." But I have listened to Good News for People Who Love Bad News so much that I have started to get the lyrics and to uncover how very smart they are. I couldn't wait for the new album to come out, so when it did, I bought it that day.

Side note: for me to 1) know that a particular album is being released on a particular date, 2) anxiously await that date, and 3) actually purchase the album on that date is all new. It's the result of mine and Sparkle's commitment over a year ago to get back into music. It's very exciting!

I've listened to the new album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank enough to catch a few really good songs and enough to know that I'll keep going back to it to dig deeper and get more out of it. There are songs that just keep getting really stuck in my teeth and I have to go play them just to find out if they're really as good as they taste in my memory. They're usually better than I remember.

My favorite song so far - the one I keep going back to over and over - is "Missed the Boat." The music sounds so sweet and the singer's voice (I'll go look up his name now: ah... Isaac Brock) is so calm and so soothing -almost like a lullabye-, while the lyrics are so damning. I love that juxtaposition - it's like a brick pillow (something I tried to explain to my almost-4-year-old friend, A, last weekend).

For those of you who don't know, I am trained in literary theory. Admittedly, I'm rusty, but I did spent a lot of time working on it. At the very least, I consider myself a feminist post-modernist, if not a deconstructionist. (Yeah, OK, that's how I consider it. But really, I haven't done this in so long that a true post-modern feminist would scorch me for even bringing it up. And a real deconstructionist would just take me apart.) Because of those tendencies, I don't put much stock in trying to figure out the intent of the author or "what the author is really trying to say." The exciting thing about a text is that it's up to the reader to get/apply/bring/create the meaning of the words. So here's what I'm hearing: this song is talking about how our country (you, me, all of us) got into the current war in Iraq.

A few of the lines that get me every time:

Our ideas held no water, but we used 'em like a dam.

and

We built ourselves a pillar, we just used it as a crutch.

and in the same verse:

We were suddenly uncertain, at least I'm pretty sure I am.

In another verse:

We didn't read the invite, we just dance at our wake.
All our favorite songs were playing so we could shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.

And finally, the verse that Mr. Brock (I might remember his name for 5 more minutes!) whispers in the sweetest little rhythmic story telling voice:

Tiny curtains open and we hear the tiny clap of little hands. A tiny man would tell a little joke and get a tiny laugh from all the folks.

Modest Mouse plays and sings the song so sweetly, in such an addictively lovely way, that it's hard to remember that missing the boat is a bad thing. Missing the boat leaves us in a place where we don't want to be. The song is SO good - the sweet music, the sweet voices - it distracts us from the point so that we don't even know we're not getting it. And that's the point.

When a work of art uses its own devices to hide the fact that it's giving you the point... that's good art. In fact, it's poetry.

Yowza

Last night we watched Syriana, directed by Stephen Gaghan. The Netflix sleeve on the disc started with the following:

George Clooney (who gained 30 lbs. for the role) plays CIA operative Robert Baer...

...as if that 30 pounds were the most significant accomplishment of the movie! It must be fun to write those blurbs for a living.

Syriana is a spooky movie. The director did a fine job of playing the movie out like a drama, rather than a conspiracy film from the beginning - it wasn't really until the movie was over that I figured I'd been manipulated. I also acknowledge that I want to feel like I've been manipulated so that I don't have to believe that there's any truth in the movie. Unfortunately, I can't quite convince myself that it's all untrue.

I'm starting to realize that I really enjoy movies with settings in the DC area. I love living here and I do like to see our local places in film. We recently watched Breach, directed by Billy Ray, also filmed around here. One of my co-workers pointed out that it was a DC movie that was filmed very well - it really did stay true to the landscape and the area. Nobody's come out to our house yet, but that's bound to happen sometime, right?

Marie Antoinette

I'm a fan of Sofia Coppola already, so I was pretty sure I'd like this movie before I even saw it. I was right. (I had the same experience with sushi too - I knew I would like it before I tried it).

There's no arguing - the movie is visually beautiful. And like other S.C. movies, there's a real stillness and quietness in the characters. There's not much dialogue - most of the action seems to be internal to the characters. I spent a lot of time imagining what the characters must be feeling or thinking. Sure, some people would say that the movie itself should spell it out for you, but the very act of thinking about the characters' internal worlds increased my empathy for the characters.

My favorite scene (not necessarily a spoiler, but you might wanna skip it until you see the movie): Marie has had two children already - we see them at their births. We learn about a third child when two workers carry in a large portrait of the Queen with her daughter, son, and a baby in a crib. Then the workers come back and carry away that portrait. Then, the workers come back carrying another portrait. As they move out of the frame, we see that it's the same portrait as before, without the baby in the crib. This scene is so well done - our characters don't even appear in that scene, but Marie's sense of loss over that child is so clearly expressed - even without words.

The movie gets slow in the middle, but it's not a fatal flaw. One point of the movie is that Marie was b-o-r-e-d and lonely and that on most days, time dragged for her like a chain around her leg. The movie doesn't get that slow for the viewer and it's worth waiting it out.

Everyone knows how this story ends - thankfully, the movie handles the ending gracefully. Of course, some people would say that in ending gracefully, it doesn't honor the actual events - that it's important to know that the Queen's excesses drove the people crazy and that the people were thirsty for blood. We get that. This is art and graceful endings are allowed.

---

I'm trying something different here. Instead of just trying to write about my life, which I never get around to doing sufficiently, I'm going to try to write about art that I'm coming across. As I read, watch movies, hear music, view paintings, etc, I interact with those objects. I'll write about that - and my writing will no doubt reveal what I'm thinking and living with at the moment. I'm not trying to write like an art critic, so please don't come here looking for deep insights. But if you've read or seen or heard anything that I'm writing about and want to discuss, please do! And if you have recommendations for me, don't hold back! Maybe I'll even post more than once a quarter this way.

Not quite my story, but I can learn

On a friend's recommendation, I just read The Color of Water: a Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother, by James McBride. Since the baby we'll get will most likely be a different color than we are, I'm trying to prepare for some of the reactions and situations that our family will find ourselves in.

The book gave me lots to think about. For example, there's an incident in which one of the author's brothers (all of the children in the family look black) gets wrongly arrested. The judge is about to send him to jail for the night, until his white mother stands up and says, "He is a good boy, he didn't do this thing, let him come home with me." The judge lets the boy go. Yeah, that stinks. But what really got me was the author's confusion as a young man about how to identify himself socially. His mother was white and both his father and stepfather where black. They lived in all-black neighborhoods. Was he black and was whitey bad? What about all the good white people he knew? He struggled with understanding and defining his own identity. His mother didn't discuss these issues with any of her twelve (12!) children, primarily because she didn't want to talk about her own growing up. The author finally gained some clarity as an adult, when he got his mom to explain her own childhood to him.

I'm sure that our children will have some difficulties growing up brown with white parents. I expect that they will be confused about who's side they're supposed to be on in certain situations. I'm sure that they will have to decide those questions themselves, but I am also committed to being aware of those questions. I want our children to know that it's OK to have questions and that it's OK to be confused. And that I will personally kick anyone who gives my babies any grief.

The mom's reticence to discuss her childhood challenges me. I anticipate that there will be a lot of stories that I won't be able to tell my children until they're older. I am incredibly fortunate that my real parents (NOT my birth parents) were near me throughout my childhood, so that they are able to help me remember the happy parts of being a kid. Talking about birth parents with our children will surely test me, as I know first hand how terrible birth parents can be. (Just to be clear: having a baby of your own biology does not make you a birth parent - that makes you a parent. You're a birth parent if you either give your child for adoption or if your child has to leave you because you're so bad at parenting.)

The Color of Water is much more complex and interesting than I've uncovered here. The details of how this woman raised twelve children on almost no money (because really, how much money IS enough to raise 12 children??), how she managed their educations, and how she was so determined to raise her children to be strong and proud and loved... that story is amazing.

Questions for mothers

So, we're going through the home study to get OK'd to adopt a baby and we are getting asked some annoying-assed questions. I'm sure that if most parents had to go through this process before they could get pregnant, we wouldn't have a population control issue. A sampling:

• how much cash do you have in the bank?
• how long have you been married?
• how much is your rent/ monthly mortgage payment?
• how do you feel about your mother?
  
• why do you think you view her that way?
• are you sure you won't mind if your baby isn't the same color as you?
• do you think your mom will mind?
• are you sure? what if the baby isn't white?
• really? are you sure?
• what is your fire escape plan for your house?
• ask your doctor: are you expected to live a normal life span?
• now let's say that you get a baby that is, say, not white. will that be OK?
• so, how does it make you feel that you couldn't get pregnant?
  
• what if your baby is a different color than you?

My mom is helping me to look on the bright side of these stupid questions: 1) she says that if everyone did have to go through the process prior to pregnancy, somebody wouldn't be carrying my baby right now and 2) it's either this or throwing up for three months straight, then not fitting in any of my clothes, and doing all of this without coffee in the morning or wine at night.

So I'll answer your stupid questions, just pass the espresso - and hand me that baby.

Dynamism

Everything's always changing and it's GOOD here.

Our apartment, though small, is GREAT. The location is so sweet - easily walkable to shops and movies and grocery stores (plural grocery stores!); it's closer to work; there are trails and trees all over the place ... Our quality of life has improved so dramatically that it's shocking. Yes, our 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment is dramatically smaller than our 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath house was - but even that's easy. It's cozy for real - everything is close - it's just good. Our books are all in storage ('cept for some cookbooks) - and I miss them. If we were going to stay small forever, we'd have to at least get room for the books.

We've given up on the quest to get pregnant and that is such a huge relief. We are in the middle of a home study for adoption. And although we don't know how long it will take till we get a baby, we at least know that this process will end with a baby in our arms. It's also a relief to not worry about "am I or amn't I?" I can run as much as I want to, I can drink as much wine as I want to, and I don't have to give up coffee. Somebody else is doing the hard work of carrying my baby - I'll pick up after that.

We went to New York last weekend. We were in the city for 25 hours and we got to connect with three different groups of people who are important to us. We stayed with red balloon and her family - it always makes me so happy to see those two brilliant people who love each other and the brilliant little boy they are raising. There aren't many other people in the world who make me feel so at home. We went out with my friend from Lamar, Jim Sims, whom I haven't seen in ten years. I was very happy to get him and Harris together - they have a lot in common and I think they hit it off well. And we met my sister who lives in upstate NY with her family - she is an incredible mom and her two little boys are so funny and so good. It was a hectic, busy, whirlwind trip, but it was so rewarding. I'd do it all over again.

House Love

Our House = Sold.

The house we wanted to buy this summer (when the losers had the contract on our house) now has a renter in it with a lease that lasts until August. We've been trying to contact the owner to see what we can do to help her decide to get out of that lease and let us buy the house, but we haven't heard from her yet. We love these houses. The are mid-century modern beauties - and we've decided that if we can't move into one by the time we have to move out, we're going to move into an apartment and wait.

On Saturday, we made an adventure with our realtor: We took a letter that she wrote introducing me and Sparklestone, explaining that we have just sold a house and are ready to buy, and inviting anyone who's interested in selling to call us. We knocked on the doors of the houses with floor plans we liked, left letters for people who weren't home, and talked to some people who were there. The second house we stopped at could be good; we are not going to buy the crazy cat lady's house; we may be one step closer to getting in touch with the owner of the house we wanted earlier. One owner laughed when we told him what we were doing - he said that they had bought their house in 1966 (when it was brand new) and they love their home and they are NOT moving. That's what I'm talkin' about.

In any case, we're having some fun, doing some strange stuff. We don't want to buy a house now just because it's available and drive by these houses for the next 20 years, wishing we lived there.

See? I can learn. I'm starting to really get the hang of this patience thing.

High Time

So much good news going on around here:

Saturday was my birthday and it was a significant one. It was the first one that I ever had trouble with, because in general, I love me some birthday. Thanks to some good friends who are excellent listeners, I got OK with it and am enjoying the celebration. Sparkelstone's amazing gift of some sparkly stones certainly take a lot of credit for the happy vibes too.

We spent last weekend in Florida for a big family to-do. I really had a great time hanging with the entire extended family - even before the honoree of the party said that SparkleFlash and I are the coolest of the cousins. When a 13-year-old says that aboutcha, you can't help but feel like you got it goin' on.

My sister just found out that her divorce is final! She's been separated from her ex- for years now and we just weren't sure that he was ever going to make a move. She made a call on Friday and they told her that it's a done deal, effective July 14, 2006. Now she can get on with her life. Way to go, Sisto!

We got a contract on our house last nite. Mind you, we had a contract on our house back in June, but that cratered for real. This contract looks really good and the buyers were actually anxious to hear from us (their realtor called our realtor to just get a feeling for which way we were leaning b/c they loved our house!). And the contract actually provides us with a decent amount of time for house prices to drop a bit in the town where we want to move.

The person in this world who has been my voluntary friend (that is, not my sister) for longer than anyone else on the planet called me yesterday after a long silence. He called to tell me happy birthday. I've missed him so badly and am so glad he called.

What's goin on wichoo? What kinda good news is happenin' in your sweet world? Do tell!

26.2

I've recently started running again and it's going very well. Three years ago, when we moved to this area, I had decided to train for a marathon. I was really enjoying running long distances - and I was well on my way. I had a running partner who lived just down the street from me - she and I would meet at 5:30 a.m. to go for 4-5 miles -- it was often dark at that time of morning, so it was great to have a partner for safety and company. Also during that time, I had a really crappy job where my bosses had no work for me to do, so it was no problem for me to take 2-hour lunches to go run for 6 miles and then lift weights, shower, etc, and get back to work. I was running a LOT.

I was running too much - so much so that I hurt myself really badly. Thousands of dollars of physical therapy badly. Badly enough that my longest run ever was 16 miles and my only race was a half-marathon. It was a real disappointment that I wasn't able to run that marathon. It has taken a very long time for me to heal and to learn how to take care of myself when running - I think I'm there.

It feels really good to run, both when I'm at it and the other 23 hours of my day. I'm slowly working on adding distance - I'm much more interested in distance than speed - and I'm now up to about 16 miles / week. Without pain.

I'm gonna run a marathon at some point, dammit. I want a bumper sticker that says 26.2.

Crisis in the Office

I am out of chocolate.

I keep a bar of dark chocolate in my desk drawer so I can have a little bit every afternoon. I finished it last Friday. I was not in the office yesterday because my hormone levels are out of control and I was feeling really sick.

High hormone levels + no chocolate in the office = it could get real ugly around here.

Catching up

Last week I got an email from someone who knew me in high school. One of my high school pals (one of the few who knows how to find me) keeps an email directory of some of our classmates online and he keeps all the women's maiden names there. Occasionally, some blast from my past will find me there and we get to catch up. However, last week, I got an email from someone and I could not remember who this person was.

I vaguely remembered his name, but couldn't see his face. That led me to want to look in my senior year book. However, when my birth parents divorced and sold the house that I grew up in, the box with all those books and photos in it got lost - I didn't live there any longer and didn't think to rescue it. So before I wrote back to this fellow, I decided that I needed to get my hands on that year book. I finally had the brilliant idea to go to the source - I tracked down the current year book sponsor at my high school and asked if there happened to be any extras of my year lying around. You know what?! One's on its way to me now!

But since this email was growing old in my in-box, I decided to just reply and hope that I could get some more clues about this once-friend. I wrote back, said it was good to hear from him, sent him some brief details of my current life, and a photo of me and Sparkelstone at our wedding (slyly thinking that it would encourage him to also send a photo, while also very clearly setting the boundaries of this correspondence. Sparkle says this guy is doing a Hi Fidelity thing here.). Well, he didn't take the hint about sending a photo, but he did write back and included some details that made me remember him. He was in 11th grade when I was in 9th grade and he actually took me to his prom! I had completely forgotten about that episode!

It was fun to catch up a little and to learn about the path his life has taken. His eldest daughter is now 15 - one year older than I was when I went to prom with him. Most days I don't feel how much time has passed - but damn, that brought it home.

This whole email and the subsequent search for my year book has inspired in me a desire to reconnect with some old friends. I had a group of girls who really meant the world to me for a LONG time in my life and I would love to know how they are. I wonder what they're doing, where they're living, what adventures they've had. The danged thing about looking up old girlfriends, tho, is that most of us don't have the same last name that we were born with. And me, I don't even use the same first name that all those girls would know me by.

The "P" Word

I am a do-er. I'm a planner and director - I'm very good at setting goals and then making things happen so that I can get where I want to be. That is, I've been very good at those things until this year.

This year, I've learned the hardest lesson - that just because I've made up my mind and I like the timing, things don't just happen. And really, I think I get it. Really. I'm not just saying that I get it so the Universe will ease up. I'm cool.

Sparky and I moved into our house just over 2 years ago. When we did that, we immediately started trying to make a baby. Well, it's been 28 months now and there's still no baby on the way. That's had some hard moments. I even had a couple of months when I was trying to talk Sparky into saying that we just wouldn't have kids - that we'd be DINKs for the rest of our lives. I'm so glad that Sparklestone already had a great command of the P-word because he just wouldn't go for it. We're still trying and we've made a deal that if I'm not preggers after 2 more assisted tries, we're gonna adopt a baby. Or four. And then I'm sure I'll get pregnant.

We've also been trying to sell our house in this seriously cooling-off market. Only we didn't have any idea how cool the market was getting when we listed our house - so we had a bit of anxiety over the fact that it took 2 months to get an offer. Then after getting the offer - get this - the buyers didn't settle. That's right, they backed out of the deal after 2 stinkin' weeks of being in default of contract. So our house is back on the market. We had a week of serious bile - serious bile - but what are you gonna do?

July was a tough month, but we're just plowing ahead. I can't control everything. You hear that, Universe? Now you might as well start cooperating b/c I'm not fighting anymore anyway.

And speaking of patience, I'm a little astounded that blogspot still has my blog active. Dang.

More changes

So, I started working for Nils waaaaaaaaay back in August and I've obviously been fairly occupied there. Life is good: the work is good, the family's good, the new PDA is good. There's only one stinky thing going on now and that's our commute.

Sparklestone and I enjoy the fantastic advantage that we commute together. We listen to all kindsa new music and some funny comedians on XM radio, we make plans, and when one of us is feeling generous, we let the non-driver nap. We have time for all these activities: every week day morning, Sparklebaby drives us the 22.59 miles from our door to my office and then drives the remaining 6.75 miles to his office. After work in the office is over, he drives 6.75 miles back to my office and then I drive 22.59 miles home. On a good day, those two trips take us at least a total of 2 hours.

That's right: at least one hour to drive less than 30 miles on a good day. On a bad day, we're in the car for a total of 2h, 20m. It's wrong.

SO, we have decided that we have to move closer to our jobs. It was a hard and sucky decision at first because we've only been in our house for 2 years and we put SO MUCH sweat and bread into the place already to make it ours. And now SOME OTHER PERSON is going to get to cook in my kitchen. However, we've been looking at townhomes in the area we've decided we're going to live (we'll only spend 20 minutes each way commuting to work... we're going to gain at least 8 hours a week) and we've found some very cool mid-century modern designs... very Brady bunch. We're putting our house in the market in 2 weeks.

Now I gotta pack.

Joy (and pain)

Starting at 3 p.m. EST today, I am officially between jobs until 8:30 a.m. Monday morning. Tomorrow, my plan is, "I ain't gettin, I aint gettin outta bed today."

Today my headache is that I am between PDA's. I am a librarian at heart who believes that I don't have to remember everything, I just need to remember how to find it. PDAs have been a salve to my soul since Sparkle bought me my first one for my birthday 5 years ago. Since then, I've owned or operated no fewer than 4 devices, but I had to return my latest companion to my workplace this week. When I reset the thing, I felt like my brain had fallen out of my head.

Sparkle is very kind to lend me his PDA, which he got as a hand-me-down from his boss a year ago. It's not quite the same model as my last love and a far cry from the device I expect I'll be working with soon.

It took 5 minutes to "backup handheld databases." Good thing I don't have much on my agenda this weekend. If I did, I sure wouldn't know about it.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I'm finishing up my last week of a job that I thought I'd be at for at least 4 more years. Unexpectedly, I had an opportunity to apply for a job working for Sparky's sister. Although I expected to stay in my current job for years, I have always told my sister-in-law that I'd love to go work for her. When I said that, I didn't even really know what she did, I just knew that I would dig working for her. She's got workaholic tendencies like me, she's a superstar, and she still knows how to have a good time. In short, she's a good role model for me in my work life.

So one day about 2 months ago, Sparkle picked me up at the metro station, as usual, and when I got in the car, he said, "Now just listen, this could be good. Nils has a job open and I think you'd rock at it." He had already gotten Nils to send me the job description so I could take a look and think it over before he even told me about the thing. Now get this: Nils works in a completely different field than librarianship. True, she works in health care the same way I've been working in health care -- working in the field without actually having much to do with sick people. But I've never done the kind of work that Nils does; I don't even know the language she speaks at work.

The short story is that I competed and got the job and I start on Monday. I have loads to learn -- LOADS. I'm leaving a career that I started about 7 years ago (it's what I got my master's degree to do) and a field where I'm on top of my game and I know how to win. I'm going to a new world where, like I said, I don't even know the language.

When I was in high-school, my aunt-mother (see previous posts about my good family vs. my birth family) put me to work for her. She paid me real money for my work and when work was over, I got to hang out and play. Working for a-m has been, by far, the best work I've had. Working for family is right -- the work part has a completely different kind of accountability and rewards than working for strangers. The real life part is even better -- I'll get to know what's going on with my nieces, my family, I'll get to develop a deeper relationship with Nils. I'll also get to commute with Sparklestone.

So yeah, I've got a lot of changes going on and it's all good. My only question is: should I wear my hair curly or not curly?

Take it where you can get it

I don't often accept that my birth father has anything to offer me, but sometimes I hear his voice in my head and it just fits. Today he told me, Never let 'em see you sweat.

If this is what it means to honor your mother and father, then I can dig it.

A new obsession

Everything has its own special place where it lives.
There is a right way to do it and it doesn't work if I don't do it right.
When I'm done, everything is ordered and tidy.
I can make each one work.
aaaaaaaaaah, sudoku.