Random
I have been remiss in writing, but so much has happened during these few years since my last post. I live in DC at the moment, but soon will be living in the Bay area of California again. It’s so nice to be going back to Cali… Yet, I have to say that I have really been enjoying VA and DC. It snows here, and the trees are so beautiful.
I am divorced, which even still at this moment sounds so strange to me. The divorce was the right thing to do, though my marriage was a wonderful time of growth and caring. All my life I have been lucky; I’ve known great people of quality and natural moral depth. My wife was no exception, she continues to be someone whom I admire and deeply care about.
Currently I am engaged to an extraordinary lady with two incredible boys. We have all been living together as a family for the last 16 months or so. It’s an inescapable reality with an almost constant feeling of being upside down. Busy doesn’t really cover how my life is now. I don’t have little time to myself, but yet I am always feeling like I’ve gotten so much done. When I do have a chance to sit down and read or write a bit, I find myself numb with exertion. But a sort of light footed joy fills me as I watch one of the boys’ ride his bike or the other puts the last two pieces together and says the unexpected.
I am heartened to see the changes in the world relating to the resent presidential election of Obama. You can’t live in DC and not have an appreciation for how large the scope of this pick will be. As I sat in the kitchen of my townhouse in VA and the results were called, I looked across to the balcony of my African American neighbors and saw them jumping up and down together embracing each other laughing and crying in joy. Their exclamations I couldn’t hear, but their jubilance was evident. Mother and son- were jumping up and down, Father holding his daughter in long arms rocking her back and forth, his face raised in a silent thankfulness to an unknown mover. I was glad for America, the country that’s come so far in so short a time.
As I walked the next day in DC, I could see the squirrels running about stacking nuts. They are all very regal, almost overly sophisticated, as if they go about their business with lesser habit and more cause. It’s the attitude of power, which flows through every artery within this center of our nation’s politics. Being a service engineer, I have terrific access into all the underbelly of these bodies. I work routinely in the basements and alcoves of these establishments, and also within the small jam-packed offices of the House side of congress. My favorite one is the Virgin Islands office; they’re always fun, and the congresswoman is one of the few reps that will stop and chat with me as I go about repairing their machine.
I’ve just picked up the latest sigur ros album and I’m not disappointed. So much has happened and there is so much impact that sometimes I find - that only a whole mood of generality can be used to express my attitude about a subject. In that respect, music has never let me down. I can put an album on as I drive to work and just get lost for a minute.
Anyway, the latest question that I’ve been wrestling with is: At what point is there so much information, that we of limited brain capacity can use it rationally? What is too much? When do we educate ourselves out of original thought? When do we pick a concept apart so deeply that it becomes nothing but broken fragments in an absurd collage? Hopeful I’ll get to some of that before the next two years.