I'm just about ready to let loose and take a vacation. It been so long since I've gone away for the purpose of relaxing -- hm, Christmas Break 1999 may have been the last one... wow, that's a while. So. I'm going to the Poconos Mountains in Northeastern Pennsylvania with my mother's whole family. Interesting.
I can tell I'm ready for it. I mean there are signs all over the place:
1. Everytime I get on a computer to work, Spider Solitaire is opened within the hour.
2. Even though I'm super broke and having a hard time buying groceries, I bought bright pink nail polish and painted my toes.
3. I just graduated from Grad School (and if that doesn't prove I'm ready for a vacation, nothing will)
It's probably not the ideal vacation in the sense that I didn't plan it or having anything to do with what will happen -- or then again, perhaps that's why it is the ideal vacation. Nothing went into it. Absolutely no work on my part. No thought, no energy, nothing... yes, that is ideal isn't it?
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
never know when it will hit you
Yesterday, in the monodrom tone of being a cog, a spark went off reminding me of life before and after cogdom. Once, long ago and far away, I lived and worked in Haiti -- a place of beauty and turmoil that forever uproots and changes you. Life there beat me up and stole innocence I didn't know that I had left (I mean, you can only be so jaded right?) Anyways, for the past year, I have tucked these memories out of my mind to someplace even I didn't know where they were. Until yesterday. I recieved a phone call from a man who is traveling to Haiti and wanted some advice about what to do. It all came back like a flood, gushing out of my mouth before I knew how to stop it. I even felt that twinge in your throat and eyes that tells you, "I'm being fricken emotional here."
I didn't know that was left anywhere in me, but apparently it was.
I think this blog would be so much more interesting to read if I were still in that life. Running around on the back of pickup trucks hauling computers through the jungle to a fishing village somewhere in the mountains of the carribean. I mean, how can I compete with that building databases in the midwest -- I think the point of cogdom has been made here.
Life, I suppose is full of trade offs. History teaches that. Adventure traded for stability, freedom for security and onward. But we all have our limits in both directions. No one can live without a certain amount of freedom or security. So you define your limits and live within them. Sometimes life pushes you beyond those limits, and I suppose that's when you grow or you stretch your limits. I'm planning my next adventure. Well, not planning per se. I don't have any concrete thoughts about where I'll go or what I'll do. But in the sense that I am preparing myself to head back out to the wide open spaces where I belong. I took these jobs temporarily to gain a measure of finacial stability and freedom, but my eyes are scanning the horizon -- waiting -- knowing I have something out there that will again call me.
My friends are all having babies. All babies, no weddings. I'm a bit old fashioned in that I think children should be raised in stable homes with parents who are commited to each other. Our generation wasn't, half of us were brought up through divorces. I suppose that's why we don't think about marraige as the foundation of family. From a sociological / anthropological viewpoint this transformation in our socity in so interesting. From the dawn of humanity we have had ceremonies for passage of rights / the foundation of family and the tying of kin but these traditions, so important for thousands of years are disappearing. I can't fully believe that they are dissappearing though, I would imagine that they are being replaced with new traditions, new rites -- but what are they? What are we doing to signal ties of kinship? I am curious.
I didn't know that was left anywhere in me, but apparently it was.
I think this blog would be so much more interesting to read if I were still in that life. Running around on the back of pickup trucks hauling computers through the jungle to a fishing village somewhere in the mountains of the carribean. I mean, how can I compete with that building databases in the midwest -- I think the point of cogdom has been made here.
Life, I suppose is full of trade offs. History teaches that. Adventure traded for stability, freedom for security and onward. But we all have our limits in both directions. No one can live without a certain amount of freedom or security. So you define your limits and live within them. Sometimes life pushes you beyond those limits, and I suppose that's when you grow or you stretch your limits. I'm planning my next adventure. Well, not planning per se. I don't have any concrete thoughts about where I'll go or what I'll do. But in the sense that I am preparing myself to head back out to the wide open spaces where I belong. I took these jobs temporarily to gain a measure of finacial stability and freedom, but my eyes are scanning the horizon -- waiting -- knowing I have something out there that will again call me.
My friends are all having babies. All babies, no weddings. I'm a bit old fashioned in that I think children should be raised in stable homes with parents who are commited to each other. Our generation wasn't, half of us were brought up through divorces. I suppose that's why we don't think about marraige as the foundation of family. From a sociological / anthropological viewpoint this transformation in our socity in so interesting. From the dawn of humanity we have had ceremonies for passage of rights / the foundation of family and the tying of kin but these traditions, so important for thousands of years are disappearing. I can't fully believe that they are dissappearing though, I would imagine that they are being replaced with new traditions, new rites -- but what are they? What are we doing to signal ties of kinship? I am curious.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
A cog
I realized yesterday just how many people are cogs and why the idea of getting a job never appealed to me. It is not that I do not like to work -- for those of you who know me, you know this for sure -- its that I love to work with the passion of what I'm doing. So many people work without being connected to their work, without being concious of what their work is producing and that is why I never wanted to work. I never wanted to be a cog.
Even now, I am at work but I have nothing to do. I am simply waiting. If in another situation, I would develop a new project or something. But I'm waiting.... waiting for that time.
Even now, I am at work but I have nothing to do. I am simply waiting. If in another situation, I would develop a new project or something. But I'm waiting.... waiting for that time.
Saturday, June 12, 2004
The first of many ordinary days
Since I have been terrible at journaling and letters have turned to emails, perhaps I can refind that journaler in me through this blog. We used blogs when I went with the team to Haiti. That was great. It was reflection and communication in one fail swoop.
So today, what was it? Hmm, sunny. I laid in bed late this morning. That's one thing in particular that I love about the summer time. I seem to wake with the sun, and on saturdays, I still wake up early with no where in particular to go. So I get to enjoy that rare feeling of half awakeness with sun pouring in through my half-closed shades. I then further indugled myself by re-organizing my closet before going to work. I find that closet organization is a hidden quirk of humans. We all do it very differently. We never talk about it, and yet, it has some hidden importance that seems to change the outlook of a day. We have so many of these little things -- traffic, our gardens, the way breakfast smells, the kind of soap we use, our favorite shirts and shoes, that pen that we love the way it writes. It seems like such a shame that such immense pleasures are hidden away for us alone. But I suppose that very fact, the ability to enjoy them irrespective of the rest of the world, is what makes them so great and makes us who we are.
Work was uninteresting. I spent 8 hours editting video for a project that I've been working on for the past few weeks. I like the project well enough, but was one of those things that somehow I ended up on, not really know how. It's ok though, I'm having a good enough time with it.
I hurried out to my parent's house just after work around 8:00. The windows were down in my car and the cooling evening air was blowing my hair. It was boogy nights on the radio and I was jammin to my paragative and poison as I pulled off the highway. After passing through Dexter, I was nearly home racing the sun down Island Lake road. The sunset was beautiful and I realized that was one good reason to live through another day, just to see the unique and beautiful painting that flashes across the sky. I was escaping to the country. Every weekend is a mini vacation where I can smell the fresh air and breathe in the smells that come with life. I was meant to be near land. To work outside. Why I have a master's degree that ties me to a computer I'll never know.
I had at best a 1/2 an hour to pick up work on the projects that I have been doing. Mainly, I have been digging small fish ponds in my mother's garden where my dad can grow his trout and mom can have her goldfish. Two ponds are dug, one's full of water with two semi-neurotic fish inside, but the edging has yet to be completed. The earth is mostly clay, so along the edges we have decided that we will dig out sections to grow different herbs. I have been thinking about how this would look and have wanted to try it for a good week or two. I got halfway around the first pond when mosquitos reminded me why you don't work in the evening in the country. (At least they aren't Haitian mosquitos which seem to bite at every hour of the day including at the heat of a 100 degree noon.)
I turned in to vegetate with mom in front of the TV, bring this ordinary day to closure.
So today, what was it? Hmm, sunny. I laid in bed late this morning. That's one thing in particular that I love about the summer time. I seem to wake with the sun, and on saturdays, I still wake up early with no where in particular to go. So I get to enjoy that rare feeling of half awakeness with sun pouring in through my half-closed shades. I then further indugled myself by re-organizing my closet before going to work. I find that closet organization is a hidden quirk of humans. We all do it very differently. We never talk about it, and yet, it has some hidden importance that seems to change the outlook of a day. We have so many of these little things -- traffic, our gardens, the way breakfast smells, the kind of soap we use, our favorite shirts and shoes, that pen that we love the way it writes. It seems like such a shame that such immense pleasures are hidden away for us alone. But I suppose that very fact, the ability to enjoy them irrespective of the rest of the world, is what makes them so great and makes us who we are.
Work was uninteresting. I spent 8 hours editting video for a project that I've been working on for the past few weeks. I like the project well enough, but was one of those things that somehow I ended up on, not really know how. It's ok though, I'm having a good enough time with it.
I hurried out to my parent's house just after work around 8:00. The windows were down in my car and the cooling evening air was blowing my hair. It was boogy nights on the radio and I was jammin to my paragative and poison as I pulled off the highway. After passing through Dexter, I was nearly home racing the sun down Island Lake road. The sunset was beautiful and I realized that was one good reason to live through another day, just to see the unique and beautiful painting that flashes across the sky. I was escaping to the country. Every weekend is a mini vacation where I can smell the fresh air and breathe in the smells that come with life. I was meant to be near land. To work outside. Why I have a master's degree that ties me to a computer I'll never know.
I had at best a 1/2 an hour to pick up work on the projects that I have been doing. Mainly, I have been digging small fish ponds in my mother's garden where my dad can grow his trout and mom can have her goldfish. Two ponds are dug, one's full of water with two semi-neurotic fish inside, but the edging has yet to be completed. The earth is mostly clay, so along the edges we have decided that we will dig out sections to grow different herbs. I have been thinking about how this would look and have wanted to try it for a good week or two. I got halfway around the first pond when mosquitos reminded me why you don't work in the evening in the country. (At least they aren't Haitian mosquitos which seem to bite at every hour of the day including at the heat of a 100 degree noon.)
I turned in to vegetate with mom in front of the TV, bring this ordinary day to closure.
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