aMMusing

In the nearly 4½ years since I began my day job, which I suppose I can’t call “new” anymore, I have hardly worked on what was the centre of my existence for several years before: my home-grown TextStyleM content management system. In fact, over the years I have even let go most of my clients, only creating a new TextStyleM submodule for one client last year and amending some of the MySQL queries in the CMS as a result of a major upgrade of the LAMP (Linux / Apache / MySQL / PHP-Perl) kernels on the server where my remaining clients’ sites reside. However, I have been keeping relatively current in web development with PHP/MySQL, as I have developed a series of applications for my day job — the initiative that earned me that big recognition/cruise last winter. I say “relatively current” because I haven’t changed the software I use — a text editor and FTP client — in about a decade because, really, a text editor is just a text editor and anything that we see online can ultimately be coded by hand.

About two weeks ago, one of my remaining clients came to me for help about uploading material in a new subdirectory within its domain. The client wanted access to upload the material on its own, which means giving FTP access. Normally it would be easier to have the client send me the stuff to upload, but I didn’t “fight” (because I didn’t feel like it) the assurance that “my neighbour and web developer is very familiar with FTP,” even though that statement sent chills down my spine and reminded me of how, a decade ago, I would have people say to me, “My 13-year-old nephew knows all about websites and even created his own webpage, so I’m sure he can help us update once ours is up.” (That’s what got me working on TextStyleM in the first place.) The only warning I gave is that if this guy screws things up, I won’t be able to fix anything until I return to Montréal late this week.

And sure enough, the phone started ringing around 8:30 this morning. But I’m on effin’ vacation and only got up and called the client shortly before noon. As I expected, everything that was “wrong” was totally out of my control, from changing on the template what’s between the bloody <TITLE> tags to correctly sending the files via FTP. Plus, wouldn’t you know it: the site in the subdirectory looks almost fine in Internet Explorer but like total shit in Firefox. I know this is a snooty comment on my part, but I can’t help wonder if this neighbour/web developer is merely using a Mac-equivalent of FrontPage of old without having a clue what the fuck is happening in the background.

This reminds me of my biggest technical weaknesses: I freely admit that, design-wise, I suck. And I always lean towards pure server-side coding rather than fancier (and, I also admit, often more user-friendly) client-side scripting. But, to this day, I seldom fall into the trap of browser-specific compliance issues, or not being able to read a CSS stylesheet, or, for that matter, unwittingly uploading files in ASCII versus binary mode or vice versa.

Additionally, as I mentioned to BeeGoddessM earlier this week, I’m reminded of how sad I feel about having essentially abandoned TextStyleM. As I use a server installation of WordPress to write this blog, I see how it’s a formidable CMS for this kind of online publishing, but I also see how TextStyleM had content management features far beyond anything I’ve seen in other any other CMS. For instance, if an image was deleted, TextStyleM would scan the entire site and REMOVE every reference to that image to prevent gibberish code or a broken image on the affected page(s). Plus, publishing a site in two languages is easy as shit with TextStyleM. However, as BeeGoddessM pointed out five years ago, the interface of my CMS needed to change to become more like the other CMSs out there. I started working on that makeover and it would have kicked ass had I had the time and energy to bring it to fruition. But work and other life-altering events intervened, so it never happened.

Despite how stupid the day job has become recently, I definitely prefer the steady paycheque over the uncertainty of freelancing. But I still feel some sadness at seeing thousands upon thousands of hours of work not leading to anything significant today.

This image is a good representation of myself after work today. That, and the fact I felt on the verge of tears until I finally said to myself, “For chrisssake, it’s only a job!”

Thankfully, the heat has come down in the last few days and I’ve recovered from a short summer cold most likely induced by my new air conditioner, so my concentration should be better now than the last two weeks. Alas, around 6:30 this morning, workmen started wrecking and rebuilding the deck on the apartment building in the alleyway just a few feet from my bedroom window. Missing out on my last hour of sleep and being molested by building sounds all day rendered me a basket case by early afternoon.

By that point, I got an e-mail that quite rightly but sternly pointed out the inappropriateness of an e-mail I sent a client last week. I never said I was perfect and this incident certainly proved it. But another unrelated e-mail from a colleague, which was appropriate in all respect and came in response to a short one I sent him minutes earlier, pushed my headache over the edge.

I now better understand how, after a while, people who work in big corporations turn into unquestioning automatons. Asking questions only leads to trouble, or to be seen as being a trouble-maker. I also now have a far greater appreciation of the courage of whistle blowers. It is truly hateful to be in a position where you are systematically excluded and not given any support despite witnessing glaring problems or, worse, very deliberate acts of petty-political sabotage by people just one level above you, whose agenda is impenetrable but suspect. Even worse is having no significant recourse when your rapport with your direct supervisor has fallen apart, in this case, very much because I’ve lost all respect for said supervisor.

Ironically, at a mid-afternoon meeting, one of the topics of discussion was the general feeling of lack of recognition among employees. And it would seem now that, just like good like kids coming back to school in September, those of us who are willing to participate are to write a little essay on “what rewards and recognition mean to me.” Except that, unlike the notorious “What I Did During My Summer Vacation” essay expected of school kids, I can’t help but feel that this exercise, in this case, is little more than a trap: If I write about what I think recognition is, I will be ignored at best or shut out even more at worse; but if I write the platitudes expected of an automaton, I will get a pat on the head and still be ignored.

People like me become automatons because we need the job. We need to eat, pay rent, …live. And we are able to live with ourselves only because we understand that the “wrongs” we’re suffering aren’t downright evil or injurious to others. We understand that what we do, or no matter WHAT we do, will not matter in a few months or a few years, let alone when we’re good and dead.

But the thinking and creative humans that continue to live inside those automatons feel sad and mortified. And, tragically, they begin to wish that the ideas that roam through their head and are never heard would simply silence themselves. Leading, sadly, to those thinking and creative humans to become even more hopeless automatons.

In the Sunday, May 30th edition of Le Journal de Montréal,*** an article by social psychologist Monique Soucy titled “Pré-épuisement professionnel: une lumière jaune” (“Professional Pre-Burnout: An Amber Light”) caught my attention in a big way.

I recently blogged about how I’m feeling about my day job these days, which ironically comes on the heels of a professional high point. Last year I did not set out on that huge project thinking I would be awared a cruise for my effort. Rather, I just did what I always do: I look at a situation and I find a way of solving the problem and being more efficient in the end. Those who know me know I can take a complex set of data and not only organize it well but also work like a bastard to create a way of keeping it well organized as easily as possible. If something must be built from scratch, then be it, but always look at what was learned in previous experiences in order to enshrine what worked but ditch what didn’t work.

To employ one of many tired corporate clichés, I was given license to colour outside the lines. And this allowed me to prove that just because things had been one way since the dawn of time doesn’t mean it should continue that way forever. It also allowed me to demonstrate that even in a huge bureaucracy where evolution can be as slow as pouring molasses outdoors in January, it can be possible to push a challenge upwards and not only make things happen faster but also prepare us to respond more quickly to the next challenge. In our case, the next challenge was an exponential increase of our workload with no expectation of adding more people to our team to complete all that work.

When I returned from the cruise, I came back with encouragements to propose ways of making more (unrelated) changes that would have had a positive impact on our clients’ experience. I love being in a position where I can do more than just whine about a bad situation, where I can actually put forward a concrete solution even if it’s outside my official job description. My motivation is not to tell other people how to do their job; it’s to share what I happen to know since, as far as I’m concerned, we’re all working on the same big team.

But, systematically, my new big ideas were poopooed and I was reassigned to daily duties I had clearly stated I had no interest in pursuing, ostensibly because I’m the only bilingual member of my team and I had done them well when I was doing them. My workload increased but my role was forced into a much tighter little hole that offers little variety and comes complete with verbal reprimands if I even dare to poke a little finger outside that hole.

The most appalling? I have been told in so many words recently that I had my chance to shine last year; now is the time to let others shine. As if that’s what motivates me to begin with! Talk about not knowing who I am and how I work!

Then comes Soucy’s article in Le Journal de Montréal, coincidentally when for the first time in four years I wake up mornings feeling tired despite working normal hours and getting more sleep each night than I used to at the height of my “big project,” and hating Mondays as I contemplate another week of being put in my place as one would a misbehaving child.

Overcoming big challenges one after another while simultaneously being imposed new ones and managing conflicts and sundry unexpected situations but continuing to perform well: this expectation [of workers] is more widespread than one might believe. … After a few months, these workers find themselves exhausted and demotivated and have trouble concentrating. Those are the first signs of a professional pre-burnout. It’s a yellow light. Should they ignore it, slow down the pace, stop or …accelerate? The consequences could be vastly different.

Summer is in full swing here and in seven or eight weeks, I’ll be going on two-week’s vacation. Plus, as I mentioned in my previous rant on this subject, I’ve been putting off way too many things in my personal life lately. So, as much as it kills me to put a lid on it and to accept that, in a bureaucracy, someone who has too many ideas is apt to be seen as a shit disturber, I’m having to tell myself that it’s time for me to hang low.

Because if I don’t, the light might go from amber to red.

***Addendum: I know there’s a whole bunch of reasons why I shouldn’t be reading this paper, chiefly the lockout of its newsroom staff that’s been going on for more than a year now. But it was the only thing to read while I was having brunch on my own.

I don’t think many people would complain about feeling like it’s always Friday. You know, that whole TGIF thing. But for me, it’s a sign that time seems to be flying by faster and faster, thus exacerbating my feeling that I’m not getting done all that (supposedly) needs to get done.

From the moment I sit in front of my computer at the day job to the moment I finally sign off — often later than what should be my quitting time — it’s a constant Go! Go! Go! The stream of calls that have to be returned, clients that need to be trained, and e-mails that have to be written never stops.

Add to that the fact I’ve been incrementally developing a Web application for said job, an initiative I’m proud to say has earned me one of the highest distinctions one can get with my employer: a week-long Caribbean cruise (that’s dubbed a “convention”) back in January of this year. I returned from this trip full of piss and vinegar, my head filled with ideas for other initiatives; however, unlike my previous accomplishment, these initiatives were met with a cool if not downright dismissive response, resulting in them not being pursued. Practically overnight, I feel I’ve gone from working for one of the best employers in the world to one that is typified perfectly by every Dilbert cartoon you have ever seen.

I understand how some might be tempted to walk away with a clamorous F-you. But that is not an option I would ever consider, as I’m smart enough to recognize that the “climate change” just happens to have coincided with a change of supervisor who, like any other, has her very own style and, perhaps, proofs to make. The tricky part is that my differences with her are strictly professional and NOT at all about her as a person, for on that front, I really, really like her. I’m good at making such distinctions. But like blogger Mike in DE, who seems to be going through a very similar experience lately, “Part of me says ‘talk to [her] about it’, while the other part of me says ‘keep quiet, don’t complain, and stick it out because nothing lasts forever.” Indeed, at the current rate, I’ll be reporting to someone else in about 18 months, whether it’s due to the normal turnover or because I manage to make a move within my employer.

However, for me, making such move is not obvious for a whole whack of reasons. First, I’m very optimistic by nature, so operating within a bureaucracy where cynicism poses as business acumen is not a comfortable spot for me; therefore, wherever I would move, that inward and cynical outlook is likely to persist. Second, the term “bureaucratic exigencies” is for me an oxymoron in that it places the emphasis on style (or processes) rather than substance (or accomplishments). Third, it’s difficult — sometimes downright painful — for me to witness the slow pace at which things get done in a bureaucracy, to the point where it seems completely out of touch with the realities of the world outside that bureaucracy. And fourth, because I’m at once extremely meticulous and passionate and empathetic, I would make a lousy supervisor in that I could be prone to micro-managing (definitely a very bad thing) or to doing other people’s work so it would be done right. I understand that “right” is not absolute, but I know myself well enough to know that I would have trouble recognizing that “right” is not synonymous to “my way,” so that would make me a lousy “people manager,” as they call them at work. Thus, I fear that my ability to move is severely restricted.

Meanwhile, beside work, there’s life, which unfortunately I’ve been neglecting. Off the top of my head, I can think of SIX major “projects” I need to get done for myself, but I never get around to them because half of them would require that I take some time off work — work which, as I mentioned earlier, is a constant Go! Go! Go! — while the other half would need to be done after work, by which time I’m often too exhausted to contemplate tackling them.

It’s also been two years already that I’m living in Montréal, a city whose energy I continue to love. Recently, former roommate Cleopatrick asked me if I regretted having moved here. I didn’t hesitate a microsecond before blurting out, “Absolutely not!” If ever I imagine myself still living in Halifax, I instantly get this overwhelming feeling of dread, which confirms to me that I was almost 10 years overdue leaving that city when I finally did.

Two years in, I’ve established a comfortable routine yet I’m still discovering things that are new to me. Moving around this city, it’s like I’ve always lived here. But I have to admit that I’m not taking full advantage of living in Sin City North, and by that I don’t mean that I’m not allowing myself to sin sufficiently. I just mean that, like always, I stick to doing the same things and going to the same places over and over again. I’ve been like that all my adult life, but I want to start breaking out of that cycle.

Here is, before my concluding remarks for this post, a video of the infamous Michèle Richard in praise of Montréal.

In fact, I think that it’s because I’m in Montréal that work — the topic of the first two-thirds of this rant — is bearable. And I think that’s because, as I strive to strike a balance between work and life, I recognize that there’s plenty of life to be had here. It’s far from the perfect place — crumbling infrastructures, a seriously ethically challenged political class, and some rather schizophrenic attitudes about being a city that is both francophone and multicultural ensure that it isn’t perfect — but it certainly has much to excite all the senses.

There have been times in the last three months when it seemed that the reunification with Esposo, although again temporary, would never come — a state of affairs that would get both of us down at times despite my propensity to put a positive spin on things. But finally, now it’s just around the corner. Indeed, by this time next week, I’ll be rushing around to pack and get ready for the trek back to Mexico City on the 29th. This time I’ll be flying Continental with a long layover in Newark on the way over, but that inconvenience is well worth the more than 400-dollars savings over what the other airlines, particularly Air Canada, had to offer.

The day job has continued its hectic pace. At some points this week, I became quite frustrated with one of my colleagues. But now it’s Saturday and I look back and think, “It’s just an effin’ job.” Moreover, I’m just days from being away from it all for two weeks. That helps me put things in perspective again: work is the means that allows one to live.

When I listen to the news the least bit, though, I can’t shake the feeling that living is becoming really tough economically. The price of fuel is reaching the stratosphere, which is dragging upwards the cost of just about everything else, especially foodstuff. I shake my head in disbelief each time I pay over $3.50 for a very ordinary loaf of whole wheat bread, yet at the same time I recognize that, with the global food crisis, things are so many times worse elsewhere in the world. At least here we still have access to a vast variety of food and it still doesn’t cost something unsustainable like 70 percent of monthly earnings.

This week was the week when I can say I wrapped up my Québec residency. I finally have the car’s license plate and proper insurance coverage as of Thursday, as well as medical and prescription coverage from work. Formally establishing my residency here was the essential component before stepping forward with everything else. State medical coverage is the centrepiece of proof of residency which, within Canada, only starts on the three-month anniversary following a move. So, technically, I’m still a Nova Scotian until July 1.

On this beautiful sunny Saturday in Montréal, which finally feels like summer again after nearly a week of autumn-like weather, I have to admit that I’m feeling a bit dazed. So much has been done — much of which I didn’t think would be so damn difficult — yet so much is left to be done. They say patience is a virtue, but there comes a time when I get sick of being so damn virtuous!

No wonder I’m so looking forward to the 29th.

– Today we got formal word of what our year-end bonus at the day job will be. It’s right in the middle of the range I expected it would be, and while I won’t disclose the figure here, I will say it’s considerable. And it’ll be paid the day I leave for Mexico. Check!

– El Poema touched base on Skype this evening. Because we’ve both been so busy — he with helping a friend move and I with work — we’ve pretty well stuck to e-mail in the last little while. He’s threatening to kidnap me once I get to Mexico, but that little plan won’t work because I’m telling everybody, so if I’m not back at work in Halifax on January 2 for reasons other than airline delays, everyone will know to come find me. Check!

As the snow’s been flying, I’ve been a flurry of activity myself.

– Pay subcontractor. Check!

– Renew a client’s hosting for 1 year. Check!

– Renew 2 other clients for 1 year. Check!

– Renew 2 domain names and hosting for yet another client. Check!

– Renew 1 of my own domain names for 5 years. Check!

– Wash the dishes. Check!

– Write a cheque to Sis for Mom’s Christmas gift. Check!

– Finally write a cheque to pay that fine. Check!

– Write my formal notice of leave for the apartment. Check!

“You’re a man with so many plans,” El Poema exclaimed at one point during our conversation tonight.

You’ve got that right, babe!

“If you don’t hear from me by the weekend, you should break into my apartment,” I told BeeGoddessM in a brief phone conversation at the beginning of this week. “I could be sitting in a corner, rolled up on myself and rocking.”

Well, the fact I’m writing this blog entry right now proves that I didn’t end up that way. But indeed, it was a terribly gruelling week at work.

What happened is that I assumed my new responsibilities at the day job. For whatever reason, we all thought it would start with a trickle of incoming questions. Instead we got a deluge — at least for one person (namely me) handling it all. I’m so glad I didn’t waste any time beforehand preparing stock answers for anticipated questions, because, for the most part, we didn’t get the kind of questions we thought we would.

Fortunately, the influx slowed down by the end of the week and that gave me a chance to reflect on what my new responsibilities will entail. Some situations were real eye-openers. If getting some answers is difficult for someone like me who’s within the company, then imagine how hard it must be for those who aren’t. So, my job might bring me to make recommendations for improvements. I’m not saying that my advice will be followed, inertia, turf sensitivities and complicated procedures being inherent to large organizations, but 18 years after earning my degree in PR, I might be closer than ever to applying what I learned back then. And I’m getting to help adapt and shape something that’s totally new to my area of the organization, so that’s the fun part of any challenge.

That said, I’m thinking about how there are only 13 workdays left for me this year and my fill-in is nowhere in sight. But that’s not for me to worry about, and trust me, once I’m with El Poema, I won’t be worried about it.

I was having just another crazy day at work. A client had stood me up for an appointment, so I was taking advantage of the time I would have spent training the client to catch up on my follow-up calls with other clients. My progress was being slowed down by two particularly complicated files, but finally I was ready to make one or two more follow-ups before my next appointment (of four) when ZAP! …the power went out. The truck you see in the picture in the post had hit that poll on Barrington Street, about one city block downhill from my place.

My next appointment was slated to start some 20 minutes later. Fortunately, I don’t rely on our online database or Outlook calendar, choosing to keep a paper trail as well. I always worried that something like this might happen, and there it was happening! It turns out my appointment 20 minutes later also stood me up, but the power still wasn’t back on by the next appointment, so I actually managed to provide training on a computer application completely by memory — at once a scary and comforting thought.

When the power came back in time for my fourth appointment of the day, Dr. Snake Oil Salesman thought it an appropriate time to crank up his music, which earned him hearing a few firm taps of my broomstick against my ceiling. Thankfully he immediately turned it down. I really, REALLY can’t stand him and his heavy-footed main squeeze.

An exhausting day at the end of a short but exhausting week…

So, I haven’t blogged much lately, have I! There’s definitely a correlation between that and being awfully busy. But let me try to catch up a little.

The Incorrigible Asshole
It’s 10:00 am as I start this post, and the music has started already from Dr. Snake Oil Salesman (a.k.a. Pig Fucker). Last night was a treat: music coming from upstairs and rumbling sounds coming from the new neighbour downstairs who was watching some action movie DVD with his kickass surround-sound system. It bugs me that the sound proofing in this building is so poor, and after working 10+ hours each day, all I want is quiet and not feel like I live in a university dorm.

Incidentally, the stomping from upstairs I reported recently may not be Dr. SOS as much as his new live-in cow girlfriend whom I doubt is the mother of the 4-year-old who stays part-time. With only four-and-a-half months left before I move to Montréal, I’m starting to wonder if my approach should be one of “Let’s Make a Deal”: Give me peace for the short time I have left and you can resume being your normal inconsiderate asshole self after I’m gone. I pity those who’ll replace me, though, and I worry that I’m an old fart who’s just not suited for apartment living.

I Can Spread the Good News Now
I’ve made several allusions recently to the fact something good was afoot at the day job but that I couldn’t talk about it just yet. Well, now I can, and when I tell you, you’ll probably wonder why I had to be so secretive. But that’s just the way it goes when things aren’t official yet.

I am now a permanent, full-time employee at the day job. For my first 18 months, I was contractual. I suppose the writing was on the wall: one of the assignments I’ve been given (which, as it turns out, has yet to start) clearly didn’t have an end date, unlike a project that has a finite definition like calling a gazillion clients and doing this, this and that with them, and once that’s done in so many months, the project is over. However, although I saw this as a good sign, I didn’t want to assume — and thus I didn’t assume — that permanence was around the corner.

This new status is opening up a lot of opportunities and giving me access to some great benefits. But again, that only reinforces the notion in my mind that this job is an enabler — the means to an end rather than the end in itself. Yes, I now hold a corporate job, but I’m still not a corporate creature.

Time and Snow Flying
Great. The first wintry nor’easter is heading towards the Maritimes. We’re not expecting much more than 10 cm of heavy, wet snow by the end of it, but it’s still awfully early to be getting snow. I’m glad El Poema and I are planning to spend a few days at the beach in late December.

But it’s not just snow that’s flying; so is time. What is it about that? It seems that everybody I speak to is finding that time is flying by faster than ever before. The only segment of time that seems to be dragging a little bit for me is the “Countdown to El Poema,” and even that isn’t so bad. We started it when it was just shy of 100 days, and we’re now in the 30s — just a shade more than one month. In other words, we’ve been waiting much more than we have left to wait.

For me, the wait is harder some days than others. Some days, like yesterday, I wish that time would go by even faster so that we can really figure out where we’re heading. Other days I’m perfectly at peace with the wait. But invariably, all I want is …well …us.

Not Another Replay!
You’ll recall how I wrote not long ago that I have a terrible memory for movies I’ve seen. Well, it happened again last night with Amores Perroes (Life’s a Bitch) …except again only partially. This time it was the middle part of the movie, namely the portion that focuses on Valeria and Daniel. It’s probably a consequence of my days as a night owl, when I’d work through the night and take breaks in front of the TV or watch a bit before heading to bed. The moment Valeria’s high-heel shoe punched a hole in the hardwood floor, I said to myself, “Here we go again!” But I definitely hadn’t seen the first portion, and I know now that I never saw the ending before. At any rate, yes, what that imdb reviewer wrote is correct: Amores Perros is “far better and more complex” than Y Tu Mamá También.

Unrelated to the film itself: Because I have an ancient TV set, when I bought my cheap DVD player two years ago, I had to get some kind of adapter to plug the latter to the former. The problem with that setup is that some DVDs with super-surround sound, the voice track is missing; I only hear the ambient sound but do see the subtitles. Even though I need the subtitles for a film like Amores Perros, it’s discombobulating not to hear what’s spoken. When I looked at the DVD settings, I had a choice of that or dubbing in French with English subtitles, so obviously I chose the French even though I hate dubbing.

Now you should understand why I don’t plan to move some of my stuff to Montréal, like my ugly and heavy sofa and that old TV set. Better to save the hassle of moving such junk and simply get new stuff once I’m settled into my new place. For many apartments in Montréal, that could include big-ticket items like a fridge, a stove, and a washer and dryer. But if I’m choosing to go to Rome, I have to accept to do as the Romans…

• Because I’ve been so busy with work in the recent weeks, my good intentions of learning some basic notions of Spanish have gone out the window for the most part. I say “for the most part” because I did occasionally look up a few words and read a few basic online lessons on conjugating the very important verb ser and memorizing possessive adjectives. However, in the last week or so, El Poema has taken on the role of drill-master; in fact, after tonight’s session, he has even given me some homework! He understands that the best approach for me is grammatical; there’s no use in throwing a lot of vocabulary my way if I don’t first grasp the mechanics of the language.

• What’s more, the Queen of Sheba‘s daughter, Ms. R, who majored in Spanish at university, has offered to tutor me as well. She’s invited me over for dinner at her new abode on Friday night, although I doubt that occasion will double as my first tutoring session with her. But I’m looking forward to working on my Spanish with her, as she’s coming at it from the perspective of someone who, at one time, had to start from scratch. While I doubt I’ll be able to hold much of a conversation by Christmas, at least I’ll be able to grasp little bits here and there, and I’ll learn some more while I’m in Mexico. For as Ms. R said to me on the phone last night, Spanish speakers, particularly Latin Americans, are extremely generous towards those who express a genuine desire to learn the language — in terms of teaching as well as tolerating bad, bad grammar from someone who’s at least trying.
• As I mentioned in an earlier post, some positive shifts are afoot at my day job, although I can’t be specific about them just yet. But I’m already having to learn new things there, too, and I’m loving it. There’s more and more variety and, yes, more and more responsibility, but that motivates me because [a] there’s never a dull moment and [b] just when things start getting routine, another new routine comes along and the job becomes new again. At least, that’s how a “glass half full” kind of guy like me tends to look at it.
• Being in a relationship that is SO long-distance requires some learning, too. I’ve done the “long-distance thing” before, but not so far and not with someone who has inhabited my being as profoundly as El Poema. A lot of the learning revolves around acquiring flexibility so that we can think ahead generally but not get bogged down with details that are too time-specific. And that can be hard when the urgent desire to be physically together becomes overwhelming emotionally. Yet — perhaps paradoxically — we’ve individually come to realize that we each need a lot of personal space, so we’ve learned that not communicating for a few days in a row is not a statement on how we feel about each other. It’s just that the communication sometimes only reminds us too much of the distance, which on some days makes us sadder than on other days.

On Thursday, it will be exactly two years since the evening Ex Friend came to visit me with some KFC and who, upon hearing about my plight at the time, encouraged me to apply for what has turned out to be my day job. Two years, and almost nothing is as it was back then. So far, my 40s are turning into my blessed decade.

For indeed, two years ago, if a friend had asked me, “Are you happy?” I might have answered “Yes,” but with much hesitance and a whole bunch of qualifiers. But two years later, I wouldn’t flinch and answer with a resounding “Yes!” For even though everything is not perfect, life is pretty damn sweet right now, and my happiness is both visible and audible these days. So, each and every day in the last while, I thank destiny for the bounty it has graced upon me: a bounty of learning about so much, including myself; a bounty that not only inspires so many hopes and dreams, but that provides the means of achieving those hopes and dreams; a bounty that is so large that one would have to be an unspeakable ingrate not to be deeply grateful for having received it.