crashed out to zero

whew, man. wednesday night, i just got back from dinner. behind at work so i am doing a little bit of late hours to catch up. i am really, really anticipating this weekend's arrival - hopefully i won't need to put in much time at the office (if any..) and I can just take a breather and relax a little. bit my nerves feel sort of fried right now.

things are going alright for the most part, since i have returned - and now it's "business as usual." Just trying to slip back into my routine and gt things under way as they should be. getting out of phase was a little weird but it was honestly nice ot be away from the computer for a few days. i am not much for camping, but suddenly the concept is wholeheartedly appealing... or maybe just jail, that might do the trick.

i feel antsy about things. i am coming up on close to 6 months at this job in a little while (another month and change, but the time flies by) and already I can feel myself getting a little nodgy "what's the next thing.." I am not used to being stable with much for any extended period of time after a little while. it's kind of my natural response at this point. it's hard to imagine that a couple of years could pass and all things could stay relatively consistent, but as usual i won't say "let's not put the cart before the horse, alright?" Oh I just realized, that saying is in drastic need of some modernization.

mostly i am realizing lately that things feel sort of out of my control. it's a sinking kind of feeling. the thing about it is that all the control i could want or need is there for the taking, for a guy in my position - at this point in my life, i could just quite honestly pick up and do whatever the hell it was i wanted to. but my superego is the boss, and it says to stay put and just let time pass. surrender to the stability. stop trying to look behind every rock, "steady as she goes." There was a time at Neversoft when I was sort of powered by that same voice, but my motives were different, I had other plans back then. Things are not bad now, but i am feeling kind of aimless. Like i wish i could snap into "autopilot" and just let the time pass me by and then snap out of it a year to two later, when things had sort of progressed as they'd been going. like when this "bas of stability" that i keep referring to was finally established. i'd be out of debt, our game would be released, etc. etc.

I am tired of feeling that way! My personality is characterized by a certain spark that makes me want to live for the moment, be rash, do strange and somewhat compulsive things. i wouldn't say i act without consideration of consequences, but i definitely would do things with more of the "no risk, no reward" mentality. and now i feel myself slipping more into this compromising attitude, "sit back and let things settle." I don't want to live like that! I want things to be different. Maybe I just need to feel more gratification (or appreciation) for the things that are already there. i need some recharge for my perspective, but not in a manner that's a hard slap in the face (like "you see how bad it COULD be?") Life is a series of trial and error, but for me it's so satisfying when things pay off.. little things..

Anyway, I am just rambling. Even if my mood is a bit tweaked it feels better to try to put some words behind it, to verbalize it. i guess that's the benefit of writing in these things.. you see yourself trying to describe what you are feeling.

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Now that I have been back from Boston for a few days, I can feel it relegating to just another memory of an odd period in my life, one that exists out of sequence with the rest of my everyday life. A couple of weeks will pass and then the whole episode will feel like it's been months and months since the whole event. It was a little weird being back in the middle of Summer, I haven't been there during this season in several years. Yikes, i forgot how hot and humid and gross it gets in the Northeast! It never really bothered me too particularly when I grew up in it, and I have always preferred the heat to the cold (even if intense).. but man! I guess I have been spoiled by the Southern California weather, after all these years. Sure it gets hot as all get out here, but it's a dry heat.. not muggy like that place. It was just gross and uncomfortable to stand outside. I wonder if the humid weather has changed at all since i left, even slightly. I know the winters have apparently been getting markedly snowier since I moved away..

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flying back from Boston was interesting - on a flight, I am one of those guys who can either pass out for the entire trip, pretty much, or not sleep a wink at all. it depends on circumstances I suppose. anyway, this return flight to LA, I was awake for the majority of it. I had a nice 1st-class seat (never happened to me before, but i did volunteer to give up an earlier flight seat so they hooked me up) and thus a little super-extendo leg room, but i couldn't seem to pass out quite so easily. that's fine, i'd slept a bit the past couple of days and i really had a lot of things on my mind. it was kind of nice to just kick back and have some hard time to think without much distraction, to digest some of the events of the busy week prior. Yeah, lots of things on my mind.. As it was a night flight, I spent a lot of time staring out the window and trying to comprehend the scenery below me. Flying is such a strange thing, it's such a displaced feeling. Always makes me feel like I am a giant, with a distorted sense of time, scale, and distance. Looking below as we'd pass over different cityscapes and countrysides, I'd try to understand the patterns in what I would see beneath me. Civiliation, all laid out neatly and completely before you, all at once. Everyone's little life, their little community, their little tiny powerlines and roadways and lake-fronts.. their commercial zones, their baseball stadiums, their residential neighborhoods, the freeways.. cloverleaf overpasses.. all laid out neat and flat and tightly connected, intertwined, everything perfectly attached. slowly and steadily carrying out the endless routines of each person's little lives, each in their little radius. The repetition of patterns in nature, lakes and streams look like tree roots and lightning bolt fingers. Industrialized society connected to huge empty plots of farmland connected to huge empty dark wide open spaces of infinite black nothingness, until the next patch of city would appear once more.

It is a marvel to behold and i never tire of it, it is so fascinating a thing to witness, every time. each place is the same, the colors of all the lights are the same, the layouts of each patch are similar. It all looks so cold and empty, it feels hard to believe it's full of people just like me, it just feels like everything is being run by invisible little specks. It's incredible to look at your two hands, to touch your forehead, and to think that from these meager tools that all of this which you see below has sprung, in such a short time.. just a few short generations. After I double my age I can't imagine what it will look like, if it will be fancier and twice as dense and alien looking, or just a little more of the same but pretty familiar - just a little more packed. Who knows.

I could talk about this stuff all night, my thoughts are full of it.. but i have some urban sprawl of my own to tend to, at the moment.