Tag: nostalgia

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How odd….

Just yesterday I had a very random thought pop into my head about high school. It was then followed by the thought that whenever I have a random thought pop into my head about high school, something happens regarding high school. I completely forgot until just now when I got a phone call from a high school friend whom I haven’t seen since graduation day, who’s now going to law school at Berkeley.

Also, today we were having a conversation about Classmates.com at work today, which I started for whatever subliminal reason.

If I’m going to be psychic, why can’t I channel lotto numbers?

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Separation Anxiety and Other Astronomical Phenomena

So once again, today we had the semi-regular gathering of the old employees of the Unit 4 computer (or “computing”) center back at Berkeley. It seems that through some weird sort of cohesion, we still manage to stay in touch and try to organize events to get everyone together.

We actually got a significant percentage of our number this time around, only missing the two who moved out of state and the two who had plans that evening. After driving to the city (That’s San Francisco for you non-Bay Area people) and having Mexican food, we were standing outside the restaurant having a conversation on the sidewalk, wondering what to do next. Aside for the $6/hour parking spot I was in, I was perfectly fine with just standing around talking. We decided to actually do some sort of activity, and ended up at karaoke. I think I scared them with how familiar I was with the whole karaoke thing. I also learned that one of the other people who worked at the CC, but the year before most of us, is currently in Antarctica. We then joked that we knew someone who was on every continent…

After karaoke, we had the same sort of lingering. I guess that’s what you get when you haven’t seen each other in months and you know it will be months until you see each other again. It took at least three different attempts at “okay, I guess we’re done and we should disperse” from different people before we actually left. And then I managed to see every single one of them driving back down Van Ness. Only one of them saw me back, though.

Then, driving down 101, I happened to look up and see a shooting star.

Yes, I made a wish.

No, I’m not going to say what it was. But you can guess.

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I can’t sleep.

It’s nights like these when I wonder if I accidentally drank too much caffeine. I can’t fall asleep, thoughts keep racing through my head. Partly it’s about the events of the last few days, but mostly it’s one of those “what I’ve done with my life” sort of random thought processes.

What does it always come down to? “Why don’t I have a girlfriend?” But then immediately followed by “Do I even really want a girlfriend?”

There’s the laundry list of failed attempts dating back 8 years. The one that hurts above all is the one who all the rest inevitably get compared to. I can’t even say her name, as she may eventually read this, and this is not the way I’d want her to find out my feelings… if I even know my own feelings, hazy as they are; it’s been 3 years since I last saw her, 6 since I met her.

It’s one of those weird cosmic things. If you ever read the stories about how a couple gets together because of some weird coincidence, or some random event that occurs that shoves the two of them together and they live happily ever after — this is the complete opposite. Through random occurrence, spooky events, and yes, a fair dose of lack of courage on my part, we never got together. It was close though.

It’s one of those things that’s always in your head. A vow to yourself. My vow is that if I ever run into her again, I will not let her get away. Fate, it seems, wanted to make it difficult. So I’ve left it up to fate.

[long pause while I think of something to type]

It seems the only way I can stop dwelling on the distant past is to start dwelling on the more recent past. I already know which of the missed opportunities of the last year will be the ones that will keep me up at night years from now.

You’d think I would do something about it. But, what if I run into her? What if it’s while I’m on a date with another girl? Fate would love to do that to me.

I hate my subconscious mind. It’s always the worst case. I want to go to sleep, but it’s not over yet.

And tomorrow’s gonna be a long day at work.

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Hrm.

Sometimes I just feel like I’m standing still and the rest of the world is moving past me.

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Etc.

So, SGI not only shipped the replacement power adapter right away, it came at 10am the next morning, which basically means that 24 hours after I made the call to customer support, I was up and running again.

But anyway.

I’ve been pondering a lot about my trip to Chicago. It seems that I caught some glimpse of something: there is life outside of California. It’s not just the weather, too. There’s subtle differences that make life in the Midwest unique. Little things that you Midwesterners take for granted that seem so foreign to us West-coasters.

Toll booths. Snow routes. Driving for an hour and actually being in a different state. Vacationing hundreds of miles away in the same place every year. The list goes on and on.

The concepts all mesh together into a feeling that seems to familiar. I could joke that it’s because I was born in Indiana and it’s in my blood, but it’s probably simpler than that. I’m the son of two people who grew up in the Midwest. It’s certain that many of their ideals were imprinted on me, in such a way that when I find myself in a small town in the suburbs of Chicago, I feel almost at home.

I’m not saying that I’d want to move back there. I’d be such a fish out of water it wouldn’t be funny. That, and I was in Indiana in December, so I know how bad it can be. I may have Indiana in my blood, but I can handle 110 degree weather much easier than I can handle -10 degrees. (That’s 110 with zero humidity, for those of you who want to comment that it can get pretty hot in the Midwest, too.)

I don’t think I’ve managed to get down in writing the feeling I have right now, but I think I’ll reiterate/summarize — I’ve started to understand how people can actually manage to live in the Midwest. There is life outside of California.

Meh. I think I’m going to bed now. God, I hope Luke stops snoring… I can’t wait until we move into our new place, at least there I’ll have a wall between me and his snoring.

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Phases, Part Two

So for some reason it’s been nagging on me at the back of my head, but I gotta explain what the previous phases of my life were. Okay, here goes:

Phase One (Birth to Fourth Grade)
Andy runs around a lot and plays in the dirt.

Phase Two (Fifth and Sixth Grades)
Andy realizes that people have different personalities, and begins actually forming friendships and, to some extent, antagonisms. Andy continues to run around a lot.

Phase Three (Seventh and Eighth Grades, Freshman year of High School)
Junior High introduces Andy to lots of other people his age, Andy begins to get this concept of what girls are all about.

Phase Four (Sophomore High School)
Andy begins making new friends, many even of that scary opposite gender. Andy develops his first very strong infatuation. (Which, sadly, still lingers in the depths of his subconscious.)

Phase Five (Junior in High School)
Andy begins to understand the greater workings of the school, the politics, the cliques, the system, and tries to maneuver himself around within it, moderately successfully. The concept of “The teacher is not always right” begins to emerge.

Phase Six (Senior in High School)
Andy becomes part of a very complicated social web, but not nearly as much as he’d like. Numerous social dead ends provide trauma sufficient to last many years hence. Andy realizes that one of his many infatuations is more than the rest, as it involves interest in the person, not just the appearance. Realizing it doesn’t make it hurt any less when it doesn’t pan out.

Phase Seven (Freshman and Sophomore in College)
Andy is forced to make many new friends, and realizes this is a fresh new start. Of course, he is too comfortable in the role he played in High School, and rapidly falls into the same groove he left behind him. Andy meets the girl of his dreams, and is too chicken to do anything about it.

Phase Eight (Junior and Senior in College)
Andy gets a new job, moves out of the dorms, and begins integrating into the social circle that he remains a part of to this day. Andy tries to further relations with the GoHD but fails due to lack of follow-through. Andy lives with different sets of housemates, and finds the situations tiresome… but then again, some of the housemates were real characters.

Phase Nine (Current)
Andy gets a job and moves out to his own apartment. Andy lives alone, five miles from work. Commute is nothing, work continues to be some happy-happy Internet paradise, life seems a perfect dream, which of course doesn’t last.

Phase Ten (Pending)
Andy moves back into a house with housemates. Work begins “restructuring”, if not officially yet. Work moves to different campus.

So, there are many other intertwinings in there, constants between the phases, but that’s the framework. And forgive me for not naming names, but… you know.

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Phases

Well, I’m in a strange transistion period now… I can feel that one phase of my life is ending, and another is beginning.
Strange thing is, this one lasted longer than most of the previous… a full three years, where most of the previous only lasted one and half or two.
With the mood at work changing, all these people leaving, moving to a new complex, and on top of that possibly moving out of my apartment back into a house with housemates, my life is gonna be very different in a few months.

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What a difference a day makes

So I was thinking once again during the hour-long drive back from band practice, listening to the Magnolia soundtrack… realizing what one of the things about that movie was that made me like it so much: the fact that it takes place within one day.
I already knew I liked that sort of thing, The Paper is one of my favorite movies, as is Groundhog Day (although that one sort of breaks the rules) and Pulp Fiction. What is it about these movies that appeals to me so much? The fact that they chronicle a day in the life of people that is so profound that it changes their life.
I can identify with this, because I’ve had a few of these, only two though. Days like this aren’t common, you may be tempted to call a day “profound” when you are just confusing it with “busy.” I’m sure the one day I’m thinking of counts as this, because, if I wanted to, I could make a 2-hour movie about it; I’ve already written a three-part essay about it. (For those of you paying attention, and perhaps even read the article in the CAA Konshuu back in 1998, I’m referring to my first Anime Expo).
Bah, I should probably get to work. This whole “fall asleep at 4am wake up at noon get in to work at 12:30” thing isn’t exactly doing wonders for me.

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Thunderbirds 2086

Well, I watched the Thunderbirds 2086 tape. The contents of the tape weren’t the same as what was on the box, but surprisingly, it was the other two episodes I hadn’t seen.
Unfortunately, they were two of the earlier episodes, so the voice acting was terrible and the editing felt very clunky. *sigh* That’s another of my childhood memories tarnished by the harsh light of reality.
Now I’m gonna watch my Clerks Animated Show DVD for some real quality animation. 😛