I guess I'm realizing how important my job really has been to me. I've had my complaints, and lately I've had mixed feeling about my company, but you know, this job has been my life. I've made some of my best friends while I've been here, and the work atmosphere has been amazing. People trust me ability here, and that means I have latitude, something that may not exist at another company with a less relaxed atmosphere.

Well, change is not necessarily good, but it is inevitable. Time to move on. Hell, even if I stay at my company, things won't and can't be the same.

Isn't it a pity, isn't it a shame

Feeling pretty sad lately. Last Friday my company lost a 400 million dollar contract, the very contract that I am working on. I haven't lost my job, because in this industry what happens in situations like this is something called a 'badge flip', where almost everything stays the same except the paycheck comes from a different company. At the same time, the wonderful dynamic that has kept me at my company for over seven years has been destroyed. The friends I've made at work, all of my mentors, we're all going to be scattered by this contract loss. It makes me sad. The optimists are saying that change can be good, and mean new opportunities. For me, change is the last thing I want or need. I'm trying to get my masters degree, and this sort of distraction is not helpful. I wanted change on my own accord.

I'm just sad. This is just not right. It is a wake up call, though, a reminder that the world is unpredictable and can be a hard place. Life isn't fair. I am being dramatic, I know, especially with the hardships that really do exist in the world. This just isn't what I wanted.

I told El about it today, and she's been so great, and I've really appreciated it. Unfortunately this also means that she is hesitant to quit her own job and move back home, because of my apparent job insecurity. Sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh.

Sigh.

Sigh

Change hasn't changed me

El is on a plane to Seoul right now, and by amazing coincidence she is on the same flight as my parents, and is seated directly behind them. I miss her, even though she's only been in the air for two hours. She'll arrive at Incheon about twelve hours from now. Though I am used to her not being around, this is the first time that we'll not be able to call one another with ease.

I miss little things about her. As an aside, my brain feels like cotton candy. Porous, unable to focus or concentrate or anything. I don't feel like doing anything. TV is anathema, I'm reading comic books but it's to pass time.

I miss little things about her. When El is on the phone, she likes to lie down in bed or on the sofa, and pull the blanket up to her chin while she talks. I hypothesize that she does this because she has always done it. She's lived in the US away from her parents since she was 14, and I expect that on lonely nights in her dormitory, she'd curl up in bed, pull the blankets up tight around her, and call her mom. Hours on the phone, a subconscious ritual she has now when she gets on the phone to talk to her mom, sister, or friends.

Thanksgiving morning we were eating dduk gook when a friend of hers called. As El ate the last bit of food, she stepped away from the table and lay down on the sofa, and pulled the blanket up to her chin to talk.

I miss her so much. Well, she'll be back in ten days, plus her company will pay for long distance calls, so I'll still hear her voice daily.

It's all a matter of soul and fire

Good evening. It's good to be 33 today. I haven't bought a cd for myself for what feels like years now, and though there are some I do want to get to fill out my collection (and perhaps ones that may seem unusual like 'I do not want what I haven't got' by Sinead O'Connor and 'Soul Journey' by Gillian Welch and '1000 Hurts' by Shellac and actually I'd like to get 'Strangeways Here We Come' by The Smiths and while I'm at it 'Viva Hate' by Morrissey, too), it's not that high a priority. Lots of things are not that high of a priority. I definitely feel like I'm in between something, like, too old to wear Chuck Taylors but too young to wear khakis, or something. I don't have much desire for new friends. I have a renewed desire to travel and go to places I ain't never been, Thailand seems really interesting lately, and maybe like Egypt or I'd really like to go to Italy, have my love show me the places she's been. I'm not much interested in being going to shows or bars or parties, but I've been hitting noraebangs while in New York (The City, who calls it that, not me, not me), and I love me some Soho, not all fashion, mind you, but it does interest me. I'm a bit obsessed with blue jeans.

Being 33. You know, it's actually an odd time. Recently I've felt like I've finally made some money, got some to burn, but then I get married and realize that while I do well, there are people my age making 5 times what I make, and I feel a deep envy. I covet, I worship false idols, I am aware of this and it feels bad but at the same time it feels normal, I don't know.

I'm married now and thinking that some day I'm going to have a child, maybe two children, and I'm not entirely sure why. This life is so mysterious. Why did I get married? The reasons seemed so much clearer when I was not married. I love my wife, sure, but why did I get married? Maybe it's the same thing as having children, like recognizable phases, or something, like I'm a fucking butterfly. It's so true, though. I put away things as I get older, I don't find video games as satisfying as I used to, new music rarely interests me, I don't know where I'm going.

I work on stuff that goes into space. Really nifty sciency stuff, space age shit for real. We're going to the Space Station, we're looking at the stars, it's so benign and wonderful at the same time. Space age, do you think those astronauts have ever fucked in space? Do you think they masturbate in private, is it better in space than on earth? I don't think I'm especially perverted, but to be honest that shit would be high on my fucking list if I were in motherfuckin' space. I mean sure, stars, horizons, aurora borealis, the motherfuckin' earf, that's all grand and shit, but jerking off in space?

So funny, I'm 33, I'm an adult who puts away childish things but wants to jerk off in space. That's kind of hilarious. Fuck the beauty, gotta check this shit out!

I wonder if I'll be much more mature when I'm 40.

Summer Dress

Longing for youth. M@ invited me to a bunch of shows, but I declined. I don't even know if it's that I don't have energy, somehow that excuse rings false because lately I don't sleep much at all. It's too much like trying to relive those days. Not to say that I'm old, but it feels false to me to try to reach back all those years. My concert going days are over, the excitement I felt back then is not going to come back, and I'm not going to force it. I feel a weird mixture of longing for youth and wanting to keep the past the past. I used to think I might fall victim to a midlife crisis one day, wanting to bring back some 'past' that I had, but the past is compartmentalized, it's tucked in the back of my mind, and like an old guitar pulled out of the closet, it is dusted off, strummed a couple of times badly, and put back.

I had some times when I felt really young. When my time was spent playing guitar and having a band, that was good for me. I was 30 when we started that, but it was my first real band so there was no reaching back for nostalgia. I think about making music like that, but I know that if I do do music again it will never be like that, because it would be false and always fall short. I wonder if that's what happens in midlife crises, these old fuckers try to relive some imaginary past and after some time realize that what they were searching for was false, that they should have been able to find some solace and comfort in the present and not in the past.

J came around recently, and our time together felt so false. A high school friendship well past its time, friends for time's sake, falling back into old roles that we've well grown out of. I still love him, but damn, we've changed, son. You're not a bro like that anymore, I was wrong.

Enough procrastinating. I'll dust off the past every once in a while, but there's a bit to concentrate on right now.

So little

Who knows why I even bother with this anymore. Like, why do I sit here now and write who knows why I even bother with this anymore. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I just live my life, day to day, occasionally think of the dreams I've had, and quickly let them be washed away by television, work, school, and marriage. Did I really want to write the great American novel at some point? Did I really have rock star aspirations? Did I really consider joining the Peace Corps? I harbored dreams of amateur boxing, too. What happened to all of these things?

I'm happy, though. I have a loving wife and great friends that I'm frankly blessed to have. I have my family, and my home. I have the important things. Those dreams I have, they flitter away for a reason. They are not what is truly important to me. I'd rather have this life and think wistfully of those other things, then have things the other way around. I'm filled by these relationships, these loves.

This is a small bastion for those dreams, maybe. Maybe that's why I still bother.

Come in alone

It's been a long time since I've put a substantial entry here. I'm at home and I'm slightly drunk thinking, you know, I love alcohol. I'm relaxed and slightly dazed, just kind of luxuriating in this wonderful feeling.

Life is odd. I'm married, yet I'm not. Legally I am married, but I only see my wife on the weekends, so Monday through Friday I revert bachelorhood. You should see the state of our home! It's seriously a wreck. My wife hasn't been home in almost three weeks, and the layer of dust on the floors shows. When I'm hungry, rather than eating I drink bourbon, such as this very moment.

Well, this isn't very substantial, either, but this is where I am.