Monday, April 23, 2007

the final countdown*

Everyone keeps asking me whether it feels really strange to be unemployed, to be freed from the bonds of corporate servitude. I think, actually, that Mimosa picked up on it best in a comment recently, when she noted that these events have been in the works for a long time.

I suppose the one advantage of my many neuroses is just that: I spend a lot of time thinking and planning, weighing and measuring and assessing. People who don't know me really well could think I'm making snap decisions, but in fact, they've usually been mulled over to the point that they have become somewhat tiresome in my mind. That's why I tend to sigh and shrug when people ask me about the whys and the hows of my decisions. I'm already bored with them.

But that's not to say that I feel bored right now. There is quite a lot to do in the next week. I move on Saturday, and I am a little shocked at the amount of junk I have managed to accumulate over the last five years. The previous times I have had to move across country, Corporate America has picked up the tab- as a result, my moves have not been mindful. This time, I really have to spend time letting go. Ultimately, because I read far too much into everything, there is something quite healthy about all of this. This morning, I woke up and thought, "Dude, it is time to let go of the Advanced Organic Reactions & Mechanisms notes from graduate school." I've been surprised at my ability to shut down the waves of nostalgia and be a little more practical I didn't even notice that I'd become so much less romantic over the years, but it turns out I have.

*


This week's song might have been posted before. I can't really remember, and honestly, in some ways, everything feels new again to me. But people, I have been getting really aggravated at all the beautiful accounts of the explosion of spring in New York (you know who you are). I know I shouldn't really be aggravated, but I can't help being a litle jealous. I guess I haven't lost all sense of romance over the years, because the spring in the Northeast continues to evoke all these beautiful, heady, heartbreaking memories for me. And there's this excitement and anticipation that overcomes you, and it just doesn't exist out here in the West. Right now, that feeling seems more matched to my mood than the calm and chill of the West.

This Jurassic Five song is actually more appropriate for summer, but it still gets me in a springtime mood. Anyway, I didn't want it to be too close to spring- I'm not trying to bring myself down, y'all.

* Yes, I am a complete loser for quoting that song- but G.O.B and I are okay with that.

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