Jackelopette

I suppose I should write something. After all, it’s been a year since I began this leg of the journey.

A year ago I’d just finished my first week of working at Council, living in DC, and learning how to live outside my comfort zone.

A year later I’m back in Davis, living far more independently than the last time I was here, and learning how to adjust my comfort zone to accommodate who I’ve become.

I catch myself missing my life in DC, especially with the weather turning and the leaves beginning to fall. Twelve months ago I was still infatuated with an idealized version of the past. I still am, though the nature of that past is mutable and scintillating. Looking back on a year ago is like gazing through a soap bubble. Some things are blown large, others pushed to the edges, colors shifted and movement exaggerated. I’ve changed, too. From pushing myself to expand my boundaries and get Out! each weekend, I am pushing myself to be satisfied with this smaller circle.

I know now that I can survive and even begin to thrive without my California circle. I know that I cannot go long without seeing people whom I love. I need a touchstone every month or so to reassure me that I have not lost them, that they are still there though our lives move in different paths. I could do it again – I could return to DC and forge a new happiness. I catch myself longing for that larger, faster life.

I also catch myself in moments of contentment and happiness, and I wonder how long I can make them last. Where once I would have loved to remain in Davis, I find now that I am looking to the next place. I am not totally happy with the rhythm of my life right now, but it is working for me far better than the last iteration. I get in plenty of travel, and in the last six years my appetite for travel has only increased. I’m feeling a lot more at home now than in the last apartment I inhabited. But this is not where I will remain forever.

I feel as though I’m rushing with a current toward an edge, as though the spring will bring with it a torrent of change. Where two years ago that spring was full of lassitude and aimless uncertainty, and a year ago a mix of entrapment and excitement, this one promises greater confidence and clarity.

Check with me in a few months to see how I feel then. I am far, far better off now than a year ago, and that was better than the year before. I’m getting closer, ever closer, and one day I shall arrive.

It is February.
I am sick.
I am lonely in a town that does not feel like home.

I am doing my best to focus on the hopeful things – my benefits paperwork is mostly done, my cell phone works again, I have a job, I have people who love me – but as is often the case in this recipe for despair, I need more and more support from those people to get through the day.

The lack of human contact with the people I love is debilitating. I miss you, I miss all of you. Please call me.

I am a creature of contradictions, frustrations, and easy joys.

Seattle and surrounding areas were gorgeous this weekend – snow, sunlight, friends, boyfriend, explorations, roses, and chocolate. I managed to acquire the flu from a coworker so I’ve spent the last few days popping pills to keep the fever down but apart from the sick I had a fine old time.

March approacheth, with all the huge project milestones and beta and visitors and friends and conferences… birthday and festivals and springtime. April with its copious travel to California. I am a springtime kind of girl.

I find it harder and harder to resist the idea of returning to the west coast. I am also becoming more and more comfortable in this city. I’m not really sure how these two reconcile themselves with each other, but here I am. I am searching for housing without really wanting to do so, which is an awkward frame of mind to be in.

My cell phone got bricked last week – by which I mean that a “software update” allegedly from AT&T turned my cell phone into a beautiful, expensive brick. The warranty replacement phone should arrive soon, but in the meantime I am without calling ability. Perhaps I’ll try some of you on Skype.

Work is busy, stressful, pressured, and rather satisfying. I come home too exhausted to think very clearly, but I am glad to have full days.

I have roses and chocolates on my desk. I’m cautious in believing that this is a happy February but here is the evidence in front of me, denying the last five years’ experience. I can’t describe how relieved I am.

It’s not that I don’t have my share of disappointments and frustrations, it’s more that I’ve got far more things keeping me interested and hopeful in the world than I’ve had in previous Februaries. I’ve their experience to remind me that it does get better – indeed, look at where I am right now.

Now, if only I could straighten out the cell phone, housing, and need for a teleporter… I’d be set.

Yes, the transitions continue. It’s … strange, how easy and how hard it is to play at being an adult here.

I’m still a college-style internet geek. I’m the youngest person actually at Council right now, soon to be the youngest non-intern employee (more about that when it’s finalized). I’m living in Warren Hall still, starting to look around at other housing options. So much has changed since those first few months of college but I still feel like the same person.

I’m a grown-up now, right? Most of the time I don’t really feel like one. Believe me, I’m not in any hurry…

Sometimes I think a little long-term motivation would help. I’m getting closer to figuring out what I want to do for that long term. What I’m doing right now looks like it’ll work for a good long time – I hope so, certainly.

Being here has given me, to exercise that overused cliche, a little more perspective. It’s easier to deal with the losses of home and childhood when I’m in this city, I think. I can walk along the west end of the Mall and see the names, symbols, ghostly reminders of others who have lost far more than I have. These things bring me closer to my loved ones, at least in mood and heart.

I’m always at the threshold of something. It’s an exciting, intimidating, exhilarating feeling. I’d rather be a little stressed than bored.

Meanwhile, I have family and friends to love, I have a city to explore, someone whose visits I anticipate like Christmas, and the promise of more good things to come. It makes dealing with the downs so much easier when I’ve got hopes like these.

I don’t generally tend to post when things are going swimmingly.

Rest assured that I’m happy, even with the storm around me and the center not always holding.

I’m glad.

I realize I haven’t been talking about the nature of my work lately.

Just assume that 4-H at the national level owns over 100 domains. Many of them redirect to each other, but it’s still a gigantic headache. This dates back to the days when every new initiative or corporate partnership or idea or whatever automatically deserved its own domain name.

Insert web-wide confusion here.

I can’t really talk about the fun things we’re designing and playing with, and really, it’s not us doing the coding. We’re just the buyers. And, as the customers, we’re right. Right?

ACCESS 4-H

We’ve been exploring all the many tools for online collaboration, social networking, statistics-tracking, and web-based learning we can. The goal is to incorporate ALL of these in a single, unified national 4-H web presence. If even half the things in the works go live, this project should significantly change the way 4-H does its magic – for staff, volunteers, and youth.

Here’s what I hate. I hate not being able to talk about it, because it’s seriously interesting stuff. I hate not being able to pick the brains of my friends for specific ideas, because that’s what I love doing.

It’s looking likelier and likelier that I’ll get to do that soon, though.

Beta approacheth.

One of my little projects (that I *am* allowed to mention in public) has been the navigation fixing and general format changing of Clover Corner News. Expect my fix to go live in 2 weeks – January 1, baby.

Cryptic, I know, but believe me, I’m having fun with it.

I’m also learning a lot along the way. Allison and Greg may remember the failed attempt to teach me CSS. Playing with Movable Type templates and whatnot has made me, while certainly not fluent in CSS or PHP by any means, definitely able to tweak my way to satisfaction.

To sum up…

I am getting paid to geek out on the internet. Seriously. This is kind of awesome.

It’s hard packing up my life in Davis and saying goodbye to the town and campus and people I’ve known … especially when I don’t know if I’ll be back anytime soon.

I said goodbye to Jeffrey – caught him just before chorus practice began. I rode my last bus and strolled along my quad’s sidewalk. I have eaten sushi and breakfast at Crepeville… and now I shall eat gnocchi and carouse with my Significant Roommate.

It’s hard to do all the things I would normally do here without beginning to believe that it will continue this way.

I’m not good at saying goodbye. I’m always thinking about a next time, a someday, a possibility. I suppose that makes me an optimist, yes?

Today was my last day in the deli.

Bittersweet.

Rawr.

I don’t understand the poem, and yet it’s in my mind tonight.

The Hollow Men
TS Eliot (1925)
I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

CNN.com – Online girlfriends sell love to dateless – Feb. 5, 2004

In other news, I’ve been below radar lately. In fact, so far below radar that I’ve managed to tunnel under the weather. *grin*

It all started with um… Steven’s newish roommate John. Whose girlfriend Rachel came home with a cold. Gave it to John. Who shared it ever so kindly with Steven. Who passed it on to me.

Stress was high last week. JR and Elena came to visit (which was nice – rather surreal, but pleasant). Went to San Fran and spent the whole afternoon in transit. Either stuck in a car somewhere on the Bay Bridge (or in the hellish logjam right before the bridge), on foot toward The Castro, on BART / Muni, on foot again, in the car again, on foot again, in the car, on foot, in the car, and back to Davis. Whereupon I noticed my throat getting a bit scratchy.

I cried “Methinks it’s February, o black-hearted, cold-fingered month! For I feel my throat rising up in rebellion, my nostrils freely flowing, and my cough about to begin!” The three years (not in a perfect row!) that I’ve gotten horrendously sick in February have been the years that I’ve gone to TIC. And come home with a cold, or have gotten one shortly afterwards. Which leave me wiped out, temporarily deaf and throbbing in one ear, wheezing and coughing, weak, absolutely helpless and likewise bored… or some combination of the above.

I detest February. It is the month of midterms, of wintertime, of short tempers and frustration with the world. TS Eliot – you were wrong. April is not the cruelest month. February has wrested that title from April’s green springtime grasp. February is short, making one believe that it is the less in sheer nassstiness. February is cold. It is grinding. It hints at sunshine and teases us with early plum trees blossoming. It boasts lush grass with nearly-frozen dew, and slices us with chill winds. Would you be less bitter, February, if we gave you back those missing two days?

*growls… and wheezes. Then growls again*

I suppose if I get mad at February I won’t be too melodramatically down this year. Rawr!