today is september 6. last night was a total trip. we went to the local high school football game. the first game in the new $20million dollar stadium. its quite a piece of work. pretty nice, really.
but the whole high school football experience here, probably especially in texas, but throughout the rural u.s. I believe is a common grounding, a social experience and celebration uniquely american, I think, and something completely outside my experience growing up in new york.
its something I’ve explored in some detail elsewhere, so I won’t belabor it here, except to say that last night was sharp, focused, like the late afternoon sun sparkling in my crystal glass just now. a moment in time, another pearl on the thread. trust me.
but now I’m sitting at the desk upstairs in my room, and the sun is shining warm on my face, but for the first time in months, not blazingly, punishingly hot, but rather pleasantly warm. its a treat. like water to a man in the desert, sort of, but not quite so far along that direction.
I love my saturdays. its an indescribable pleasure to me to putter in my garage, fixing things, building things, enjoying the simple pleasures of life, occaisionally throwing the frisbee for my dogs who otherwise lounge around, apparently satisfied to be within eyeshot or perhaps in their cases nose-shot of their master. they follow me around like an entourage, like a shadow, exceptionally focused on my movements, my hands. and at least at times like this, its a pleasant feeling to have such trusty companions, just to share the experience of life with.
earlier in the day, I took them out to the field to throw the frisbee for them, and I slacked off of my workout and my run today, but I deserve it. anyway, they need to blow of the steam, and I’ve been able to do something along the lines of exercise for I guess six of the last seven days, so they deserved a turn. and they need someone to take them. God knows no one else in the house seems to think along those lines, even though I was the one who didn’t want dogs, and they begged me. “oh, dad, we’ll walk them, and we’ll feed them.” I knew it was a bunch of crap even then, but I wish Anita and the kids would take the dogs out for a walk or to play if for no other reason than for their own good now and then.
but this moment is also precious, more like a jewel than most, as I sit here, and the wine is just right, and the sun filters through the trees, and I return to the gravity, the magnetism of the computer after a pleasant day working in the non-sweltering garage, cleaning up the boat, perhaps for the last time, and constantly consulting my long todo lists, checking things off, adding new entries, and thoroughly enjoying myself, I recall the infinitude of things I want to do, physically, intellectually, spiritually, and I know time is limited, and one must prioritize, but in this instant, there is all the time in the world.
I’m a real fool for sunlight. colors, shadows, brightness and dark, its funny how I wound up in this field, the computer arena, so artificial, so manmade, but one of the things I enjoy most about it is the sense of adventure, that we are doing something that has never been done before, we’re blazing new territory, even if it seems mundane, its not. providing new means for folks to access and process information, and even new means for policing those folks from abusing the very means we just gave them, its a crazy world. I used to say it was like the early days of barnstorming, you could just feel the energy. its changed, now a little more corporate, a little better understood by the “lay folk” but still now and then you get that sense of adventure, and I’m a fool for the question: “what does this do?”