I’ve been neglecting this for a while. Whatever.
Here’s a quick recap of months of life: went to L.A. for xMas. Long drive, decent hotel. Visits. It was super awesome to see Diane. I was so in love with her. Still am.
Back, and the Zoom thing fell through. Onward, then-had a ton of phone calls, screens, face-to-face, but nothing, nada, zip, bupkis. Not much else happened during this time-kids & school, church, gamelan, the usual. A couple of things. C is a conservative and supports Trump-we think he’s just trying to piss us off… M is doing very well. S is too-she had chicken pox. E had colitis, but it’s subsiding now. We had to rush to get OHP insurance. I was finally getting close with OHSU, and a company called Schneider Electric wanted me to interview in Clovis, and I was hanging on with Hitachi. Finally Hitachi came through, but with a contract for Nintendo doing php rather than Java with NWEA-oh, whell… So I’m in Seattle for 2 weeks, and have to wait 45 days to get paychecks. Yuk, but it’s a job with a good rate. I took the train up, and stayed in a tiny room right next to Microsoft, and walked to work, back and made chinese food for dinner. E and S came up Thurs., drove around, ate pizza, sleep. Friday they’re going downtown. The traffic south is insane. They had a great day downtown, and we waited ’til 7 to leave. Drove home, slept in, shopped at a flea market in Vancouver, home, church, train back to Seattle, back to work.
Geezer rock stars are dying. Lemmy, Bowie, B.B., Kantner, Glenn Frey, Chris Squire, now Prince (even though he’s not a geezer)…
I’ve been reading Alexander’s The Nature of Order. It’s slow going, but valuable. I wish this would change everything, but it’s likely not going to happen. He’s coming at Steiner’s theories, but from the other direction. I don’t think he’ll end up at the same place, but only because he’s not clairvoyant and Steiner was. Even with Steiner’s blind spots, bias, and pre-conceived notions, the idea (and reality) of a spirit-filled world is true and valuable, and that’s the end-point of Alexander as well. How to spread this?
I had some thoughts about Microsoft as I was walking through the campus. What happens to Bellevue/Redmond if M$ never existed? Also, what would it look like if M$ used Alexander’s building theories?
I’ve also been thinking about alienation. About how the hallmark of our culture and era is just that. And how I fall into that hole, even without thinking about it. That there are so many who do the same, but don’t have (or know) the way out. I’m reading the last of Alexander’s books now, and he’s noting the same thing in building, and life in general. I have to take a moment to reconnect, and luckily all it takes is a moment for me. That doesn’t take away from the general feeling, and how I still feel it, especially about other people. Sometimes it’s a consequence of living in a city, where there are lots of strangers, and you can’t treat them like friends. Sometimes it’s closer to home, but luckily I can shake it off. That doesn’t minimize the feeling-it’s dangerous, and it infects things. I think it’s a consequence of the culture, and my personality, so it’s a thing. And not just my thing.
Onward. into the breach.