Category: general

Waking up & walking out of the bedroom this morning, I sighed.  

“What’s wrong?,” Sharaun asked, still just sitting up in bed herself.  

“I don’t know…  Everything’s weird,” I said, walking over to giver her a hug.

“Yeah, it is.”

Everything is weird, y’all.  Our lives are in transition, and so is our stuff, and our house.  It may seem silly, but the absolute mess that causes gets to me.  I take comfort when where I live is neat and clean, and right now our house is anything but.  Boxes from our new tenants are everywhere, our stuff is everywhere as we sort, inventory, and dither, stuff for my upcoming John Muir hike is, you guessed it, everywhere.  

We are completely uprooting our lives and going on the road for a year, I’m not naive enough to think that transition won’t be messy – but that doesn’t mean the messiness can’t bother me. 

I’m not the best at transitions.  Right now I just want to be doing what’s next, to have already started the new routine.  The fact that I feel this way is one of the main things I look forward to adjusting this year.  I want to be more comfortable during transitions… I’ll definitely need the skill upon returning to work.

Peace.

When I was a kid my mother’s parents lived in a log cabin house atop a certain mountain in sunny Southern California.  It was a bit of “community,” I think  Several houses spread wide across the hilltops, some owned some rented, one person sort of “head” of the thing (maybe the owner of the majority of the rentals, I think).  

There was, down the road a ways from their place, a community pool.  When we’d go visit them, we’d all go down and spend time there.  There were never many people there, the total population on the mountain couldn’t have been that large.  The pool had a diving board, and for a long time that diving board was my great challenge.

I’d walk over to it, get scared, and walk back.  I’d maybe walk out on it, get scared, and walk back.  Maybe bounce it a little, get scared, walk back.  You get the idea. 

The feeling out on the end, knowing it’d be fun, knowing I’d be OK, wanting so bad to do it but chickening out… 

And, then, you finally did it.  Woohoo.  So worth it.

Tomorrow is my last day at work for a year. 

OK, its really something like 357 days… but that’s close enough to a year.  

When Sharaun and I decided to do this trip, and it came time to inform the sawmill powers that be, I walked in resolved.  Not angry, not spiteful, just… resolved.  I was prepared to quit, but with intent to simply try to get back in after our trip.  I figured I’d have a good chance, my network is strong and track-record decent.  So I laid out my case; stated my intent.  And the sawmill said something like, “Oh don’t leave.  Just take some time.”  Not those words, but that was the sentiment.  So, I am.  I’m “taking some time.”

And that time begins tomorrow 5pm.  OK maybe 4pm; sue me.  The past week or so has been a blur of wrapping things up & send-off happy hours.  I’ve eaten tater tots for dinner and gotten Uber receipts with post-3am timestamps.  Not the best training for the ~80mi JMT hike I start next Friday, but a lot of fun regardless.  Re-born along the JMT into a new year… that worked out quite nicely.  

Anyway the last real work-things are now complete, yet I’ll finish my time in the office because that’s how I do.  It’s funny though, it’s like my career has wrapped around on itself… these “last” days blurring into something really familiar… sitting in a cube, mostly bereft of real work, listening to music – very much like those first days. 

Anyway, tomorrow is my last day at work for a year.   Guess I know what I’ll be listening to first-thing Saturday morning, huh?  Wow.

Peace.

A few days before my dad passed away (two years ago now and a story which, if I ever really get back to this, I’ll surely write in detail), he relayed to me an amazing dream he’d had.  

Near the end of his life, I began writing down and recording the things he said, particularly when I thought I might forget them or that they were especially valuable.  As he relayed the below, I cribbed it into my phone, in outline form, attempting to be inconspicuous about it for fear of breaking his concentration.  

For the first time, I’ll attempt to turn that outline into something more readable.  It won’t be perfect, because there is a lot of context to that last week or so I’d need to give to really set the stage.  But it’ll be OK, I think.  In fact, maybe it’ll be better without the context.  

In his dream my dad had died and arrived in heaven.  

He told me that, upon arrival he was greeted by Thomas, disciple of Christ.  Thomas was with him in a room with many doors, each one numbered.  In arriving, dad had come in through door #14, that seemed important to him.  Thomas explained what my dad called “the truth about heaven.”  That truth being that each of the numbered doors represented an alternate reality, what my dad called a “layered multiverse.”  

Dad relayed Thomas’ words, “Through each door are alternate yous in alternate worlds.”  Thomas explained that humans have been seeking to understand and explain these multiple realities for eternity, and their attempt, and ultimately inability, to do so was the genesis of the various religions of the world.  Several had got certain parts right, but none got it perfect.  Thomas noted that the physicists of the world were the “truest” priests, and that they were very close to truly figuring things out.  

Finally, Thomas asked my dad if he had any questions.  Dad wanted to know four things, in the following order:

1. Could he see his mother and father?
2. Was it OK to doubt?
3. What age are people in heaven?
4. Do people eat in heaven?

Before I get to the answers my dad got from Thomas, let me break narrative stride for a moment (that is, if I ever had it).  Yes, dad said the words “layered multiverse.”  Here was my dad mixing things he loved, misunderstood, desired and feared… all jumbled.  His love of science and science-fiction, his misunderstanding and fear of Christianity, his desire to have had more time with his mom & dad, his feelings about his current condition.  When I reflect on the dream he relayed to me, it is simply dripping, overripe, with what I imagine was in his head in those last days…

So, according do dad, how did Thomas respond?  Like this:

1. Yes, dad’s parents were there & he could meet them immediately.
2. Thomas explained that almost anyone would surely doubt.  I could tell in his tone that this “permission” from Thomas was important to my dad.
3. There is no age in heaven.  To each person, those they interact with are the age at which they best remember interacting with them when alive.
4. Eating is optional, but totally unnecessary.  

In his dream my dad had died and arrived in heaven.  

In real-life, he would only live another few days.

One day I’ll write about it properly.  

I wrote quickly.  I likely wrote poorly.  

Goodnight.

When I look back and try to figure out what single thing, if any, is responsible for me not writing anymore – it’s a feigned exercise.  There’s no mystery, it was the RV trip.  I just got way out of habit… and don’t feel compelled to go back.  Nothing, even folks occasionally telling me they’d like to see me writing again, really sways me much.  I’m just done for now.

There are things I miss about it, mostly the archival nature of old posts (and mostly not the self-indulgent soliloquy that I look back on with growing embarrassment).  I feel bad that one day down the road I’ll be able to look up posts like this one to help me recall when Keaton’s verbal skills were turning from words into rudimentary sentences but won’t have a complimentary post to help me remember when Cohen began doing the same.  (For the record, Keaton was 19mos when I wrote that and Cohen is now 18mos… he’s got quite a few words but isn’t quite idea-stringing like she was.)  Anyway I think I’ll miss being able to look things up in that sort of “index” to the past I had when I used to write every day.

I also miss the “release” of writing.  It was a great break from the tension of the day.  I’ve become bad at this, releasing tension.

I’ve atrophied; become bad at drawing every last bit of joy from each day and instead become focused on “point happenings” in the future.  My brain says, “Just four more weeks of work and then we’ll have that weekend camping trip.  Then it’s another month and I’ll take that week off when Sharaun’s folks are in town. Oh, and, won’t next Thursday night’s happy hour be a nice break… only a week or so more of this.”  There was a time when I was better at this, I stopped.  Lately I’m doing better.  Striving to  re-establish good habits.  Put the computer away at night.  Read at least one chapter to Keaton.  Spend at least 20min on the floor with Cohen.  Pull the bike out at least once a week and get around.

I fear that, looking at time stretched-out in front of me like a series of anticipated events dropped thin along a linear timeline of “must do” humdrum, I’ll miss the good stuff that happens every day.  We must be deliberate.  Must remember that the magic that is now is gone tomorrow and if I miss that game of Chutes & Ladders with Keaton tonight I might miss it forever.  We must be selfless.  My work-time can and should happen at work.  I must be diligent and keep it there.  Must be involved.  Television doesn’t count towards together.

Gonna make it better guys.  Gonna work on this sort of thing before I get down to “writing” on the priorities list.

Peace.

I thought, “Why not try to make my own martinis?”

How Draper of me.  How 1950s Catholic.  What’s one need, anyhow?  Some olives: check.  Some vodka: check.  Some vermouth: check.  Ice and whatnot, sure.  Some years back, I don’t even recall the occasion, we were given a cocktail mixing set.  I think it was the “thing” at the time, a little metal bar set with tongs and strainer and whatnot.  When I pulled it down from the back of the top shelf this morning it still had tape on it, just like the day we pulled it from the box.  I gave the thing a thorough cleaning and double-rinse in preparation for its inauguration.

And a few jiggers later I was sitting in the garage listening to Neil Young with a buddy from South Africa (I needed a martini-experiment guinea pig).  It was hot today so the garage wasn’t all that comfortable, and there were flies in there (I have this theory that they’re attracted to smoke, the barbecue and pipe seem to draw them in).  I have a thing for fresh air (says the guy who just wrote about flies and smoke), so sitting in a camp chair in the garage where it’s shady is an upgrade to sitting inside (and not being able to smoke a pipe, too, I suppose).

The drinks came out OK.  Too much vermouth.  Would’ve made another to hone the mix but didn’t need another.

‘Night.