A lot has been going on
Wow LJ. We have been together quite awhile now. I feel bad about neglecting you lately.
For awhile there I was pretty good at regular updates (whining). What I lacked in quality I made up in quantity. Fine - that’s kind of the American way really.
The times that I write are typically the times when I have the least to write about: down times, boring times. This post might be an exception. I need to collect my thoughts a little. A lot has been going on.
What I’m experiencing now is nothing short of a cataclysm: A move, a new home, a new job… same employer though. Old colleagues are now subordinates. That’s an odd transition that demands resiliency of me that does not come naturally. Some people are born to be managers and some have managing thrust upon them! (Note to self: Learn more about Theodore Rooselvelt.)(Oh, and read Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince).
Something that is difficult for me: The higher up you move (and I presume it’s pretty much the same thing in every sector of society), the less visible, tangible, productive work you do. Your ‘work’ becomes getting other people to work. It means motivating others even when you don’t feel motivated yourself. It means learning to appreciate, even value people that you don’t necessarily like and sometimes being hard on people that you do like. It means that instead of dealing with the nuts and bolts that hold widgets together, you’re dealing with people and dealing with people means dealing with their bullshit. I don’t want to alarm any of you but people are equal parts insane and stupid. I love them anyway which means that if I don’t get a bleeding ulcer, I was probably a pretty good pick for this job.
So I’m moving.
I’ve sold or otherwise disposed of a lot of my earthly possessions. It’s excruciatingly painful for me but I’m capable of masochism under the right circumstances. Garden furniture gone, basketball hoop gone, ping pong table gone… gone are about 100kg of miscellaneous bicycle parts, 110 volt appliances and power tools (another gaping gash in whatever tenuous thoughts I ever had of ever moving back to the land of round doorknobs). I’ve figured out that e-bay is hardly worth the hassle unless you have something of undisputable value that you’re willing to let go for about half of what it’s worth.
Then there’s the stuff I’m keeping that I’ll probably never use anymore: Skis, my barely set-up darkroom that’s going back into storage, scuba gear… I own way way way too many books.
Addiction… I need to write something about addiction.
Now I’m moving to a (let’s face it) palatial apartment in Paris. Oh, and did I tell you that there’s a parking garage down stairs and one door over* and a pub that has Guinness on tap for 5 Euros a pint at happy hour**? How did this happen to me? It’s like my greatest most impossible prayer got answered; twenty years too late. I hope I can like it. Can I somehow resurrect my youth?
Travel… Here’s the other thing. Now that I’ve finally grown to hate driving and everything associated with it from evil geo-politics brought on by petroleum to pollution to automatic radar cameras to the mind-numbing activity of driving itself to the danger of accidents to machines that are created to alleviate chronic penis envy and the owners thereof, I find myself in a situation where I’ll be spending a good amount of time every week behind the wheel.
But I think I found an ointment if not a cure:
1. Always get the smallest, most economical car available from the motor pool.
2. Audio books.
I read (or rather listened to) Choke by Chuck Palahniuk last week. That ate six hours - a round-trip to Reims. I just had a thought: I’ll make this a separate post…
*Parking spaces in Paris are more valuable than diamonds which makes this place, at 260 Euros a month, a steal, a Godsend, a miracle.
**When I said this to one of my (American) colleagues he said, “You know you’ve been in France too long when you can get excited about 5 Euro pints of Guinness”.