In-between times...

I don't know if I have any readers anymore.  I don't know how I would, actually. I abandoned this project like, a year and a half ago.  And now I'm picking it up again out of the blue.  But hey, this blog is less for others and more for myself.  If someone gets some sort of cathertic Schadenfreude from my strange peripatetic wanderings, dislocations, and vagrancies; well then all the better.  

So, I'm somewhere outside of Boston now.  Having left the Small New England Village that held me captive for so long.  Having finished grad school also, more or less.  By that I mean to defend my thesis in the Fall so I can drag out my health insurance coverage over the summer.  But I do owe the University $500 so I can reinstate in good standing for the Fall and my money situation, as usual, is woefully sad.  I'm in an in-between time, you see.  I often mull over this excerpt from Roethke's poem "The Lost Son" when I think about my "in-between times", which are many:

It was beginning winter,
An in-between time,
The landscape still partly brown:
The bones of weeds kept swinging in the wind,
Above the blue snow. 

It was beginning winter,
The light moved slowly over the frozen field,
Over the dry seed-crowns,
The beautiful surviving bones
Swinging in the wind. 

Light traveled over the wide field;
Stayed.
The weeds stopped swinging.
The mind moved, not alone,
Through the clear air, in the silence. 

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still? 
A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait. 

When looking for this poem, I found that others also dwell on the fact that our very nature as human beings causes us to be cyclical.  In other words, progress is a hard won prize.  Only after repeating ourselves do we learn enough on each repition to maybe move forward a little at a time.  Yes, thus the Syshiphian nature of so much of our existence.  Wow.  

I'm living with friends, as I mentioned in my last post.  Very, very generous friends who I am forever indebted to for allowing me to stay in their home while looking for a job. I am also sometimes afraid that they must be scandalized by me.  They have two beautiful and very young children.  So they have settled into the suburban lifestyle so many parents adopt in order to provide a stable and healthy home.  Me? I'm single and, frankly, I've reached a point in life where I'm embracing the whole "quirky alone" thing as an identity.  I don't run around fantasizing about being in a relationship or having kids becuase, well, I actually like the freedom that comes with being on my own.  What I really need is a job.  Still, I worry that when they trundle off to bed at 11pm every night, they secretly roll their eyes up knowing deep inside that I will be quietly planted on the couch until 4am.  Surfing the internet, half watchig TV, writing, coding, reading, and nipping at the tequilla Ive stored in their liquor cabinet.  

I've always had terrible insomnia.  I take about three Unisomes at night, but I don't often fall asleep until 3:30 - 4:30am.  But I worry that they worry about my polar opposite lifestyle.  That they don't understand.  That it might drive a wedge between us.  I know...I'm paranoid.  The thing is, I do as much as I can to ensure the friendship doesn't suffer from this arrangement as I know they do too.  It's a delicate balance of knowing when to help out (ie. cooking dinner for everyone when the parents are working so they don't have to deal with that task), and when NOT to help out (like when the parents want to jump in and feed their kids because it's fun for them, etc).  So many things in Suburbia for me to get my head around.  

Lately, I've been trying to make sure Im off exploring Boston when they are home to ensure I'm not too underfoot.  And I've been seeing some great parts of Boston.  I still feel more connected to NYC, but I can see why others really love this part of the world too.  More on that later.  I'm working up to that post which should come in the near future.

Oh! And the job thing.  Big Media called me back down to NYC for an interview.  It would be a huge promotion if I get this contract.  It would be a software optimization role involving development and configuration.  And more money.  And living in NYC.  And, and, and....  The list really goes on.  I want this BAD, people.  BAD.

So far I did great on the first interview two days ago,  but now it's a waiting game.  Are my skills the right ones for the job or will one of the other six candidates have better chops?

I need good wishes everyone!  Positive fucking thoughts over here!!!!!  Ok?  Oh I forgot, I probably dont even have an audience anymore...  

Yup.