only don't know

September 21, 2001

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Casey Fossem

Today's Reading:
A Summer Ride Through Western Tibet by Jane E. Duncan, Curious Naturalists by Niko Tinbergen

This Year's Reading:
2001 Book List

OK. I started (and nearly completed) two other entries this week and finally decided to delete them. I'm into this thing of wanting every entry to be a perfect well constructed essay. I 'm frustrated that I can't do that. My writing is best when I'm being funny or when I'm writing about small things: birds, plants, cats, Hungarian botanists, everyday life. I am not good at writing about feelings or major current events. It's not that my emotion chip is malfunctioning. It's that the load and store time between the emotion chip and the writing processor is so darned slow. That and I'm self-conscious about trying to say things right.

Actually I'm self-conscious about any and all of my writing. I keep picturing people reading this and saying "How dare she call herself a writer!?!" (Whatever happened to the interabang anyway?) But if I let this keep me from writing at all, I'll never get any better at it. Not to mention that I'll be royally screwed because one of the major things I'm doing these days is a book. No, not the great American novel. Not anything like that at all. My friend Charla once pointed out that perhaps my destiny in life was not to write the Great American Novel but rather to write the Great American Driver Manual. I might add that she said that long before I actually fulfilled that destiny. The new project is naturally about I/O (loosely) and since Starship Startup is in stealth mode, I can't say much more than that. Anyway, I darn well had better get my writing chops back soon.

So, this week was weird. It had high points and low points, fun, boredom, work, play, food, addiction and weather like all weeks but it was still weird.

Monday I have almost no memory of except that I interviewed a really good candidate to work for me at Starship Startup. Other than that I was pretty much a zombie. A reasonably effective zombie as the work appears to be getting done though.

Tuesday I (and a couple of other Starship Startup folks) had lunch with a former coworker from It Doesn't Suck (that would be the company I worked at for 6 years before Cosmodemonic Telecomm). I should point out that my boss at Starship Startup is from It Doesn't Suck as are a few other people there - he's trying to - as he put it - "put the band back together". It Doesn't Suck was a major formative influence in my life. You read that right. Life not just career. Many of my most valuable and significant friendships were formed there. The people I worked with there were overall the best set of coworkers I ever had. A number of us feel the same way. Anyway, what brought us together on Tuesday was the death of another It Doesn't Suck coworker who was on American Airlines Flight 11 last Tuesday. The ensuing emails as people recognized her name on the list brought people back in touch with each other. Everybody had a slightly different distribution list so there was a lot of "oh that's where he/she ended up". A horrible way to reunite, but at least a reminder of how we are connected. In the 495/128 high tech community here almost everybody I talk to either knew someone on one of the two flights that originated in Boston or was only one degree of separation away (knew someone who knew someone). It's kind of a major wake-up call.

Anyway, the dude we had lunch with on Tuesday asked after my friend Bonnie - another It Doesn't Suck coworker with whom I have kept in touch ever since. We had this vague plan to climb Mt. Fuji on my 50th birthday with Joan-west (also from It Doesn't Suck) but it didn't come together for a thousand and one reasons. And lately I've been losing touch with friends all over the world. I used to at least send post cards of my travels but even that has slacked off, as has my traveling. I've been getting more and more isolated and I don't really know why. This phenomenon started before I joined Starship Startup so it's not specifically the new job though it may have something to do with my work addiction or maybe with character defects at the root of my work addiction. Be that as it may, I got jolted out of that isolation and called Bonnie. We talked as if we'd just left off yesterday.

I called other friends too. Ones not so far away and not so long neglected. I poked my head out of my hermitage and tried to connect.

Wednesday I interviewed another candidate to work for me and developed an interesting problem: two perfect candidates for one slot. What do I do? Flip a coin? Much effort then went into checking references, trying to figure to whom I will make the offer, and what the offer should be. I'm sure other work got done but I feel like all my energy has gone into the hiring process.

This brings us to yesterday. Thursday. More energy expended on the hiring dilemma. Then off to Cambridge for my Thursday night meeting. I left work a little early so I could eat dinner before the meeting. So there I am sitting in Ghandi in Central Square eating sabzi kofta when a silent parade of peace marchers walks by on the sidewalk headed down Mass Ave toward Boston. They are all carrying lighted candles. It is raining and many of them are also carrying umbrellas. Everyone in the restaurant watches them. People in the restaurant start to talk to each other a little. About 10 or 15 minutes later much loud noise - shouting and drumming - drifts in from outside when someone opens the door. Everyone looks to the street. A crowd chanting something we can't make out and banging on drums is marching in the middle of Mass Ave towards Harvard Square. No candles. No umbrellas. Some people are carrying a huge banner that reads Abolish Capitalism Smash the State. We in the restaurant are confused. We ask each other "Are these the same people who just went by the other way?" All present agree that no they are clearly not the same people. The crowd in the middle of the street is loud and some of them are waving fists in the air. One guy gets up and goes outside to see if he can find out what they're about. He comes back with no more knowledge than we had inside. Two Sikhs seated at the table next to mine decide they had better wait until whoever they are have passed just in case. The march passes and Central Square returns to normal, well as normal as it can be considering it is Central Square.

I heard on WBUR on the way to work this morning that Attorney General John Ashcroft had alerted Acting Governor Jane Swift and Boston Mayor Tom Mennino about some sort of threat of attack on Boston. Her Excellency responded by upping security at Logan Airport and sending state police to protect Quabbin Reservoir. Quabbin for those readers unfamiliar with the strangeness of Massachusetts is in western Mass. but is the water supply for the city of Boston. The surreal TV at Perfecto's doesn't have anything about this during the 5 minutes it takes me to buy my coffee. I drive to work wondering why on earth anyone would attack Quabbin. In fact how would terrorists even know about Quabbin?

Today Starship Startup has an all-hands meeting in the morning at the Westford Regency (scene of many an It Doesn't Suck event). There are lots of PowerPoint slides involved so the meeting takes place in the dark. Despite a large cup of Perfecto's dark roast of the day, I have trouble staying awake. Periodically I wonder if terrorists have attacked Quabbin Reservoir yet and what that might mean to the breeding success of bald eagles in Massachusetts. It's also pouring rain outside and my right foot is wet from stepping in a puddle. I do somehow manage to stay awake and take in enough content of the PowerPoint slides to realize there are couple of points I need to ask our CTO about in more detail.

By lunch time the rain has let up - just in time for our company outing at Kimball Farm. I enjoy my veggie burger, lose my mini-golf ball in the water on the first hole, and get very wet on the bumper boats when my coworkers trap me under the waterfall. I stop at Super Cuts for a haircut on the way home still wet from the bumper boat incident and smelling kind of moldy. A portobello and mushroom sandwich at Panera for supper and a change of clothes -- grubby but dry -- and then I curl up with Wilbur to listen to the Red Sox vs. the Tigers on the radio.

All so very normal ... for some values of normal...