load 16 tons and what do you get?

well, i'm two weeks in at a new job. surprise!
yeah, i left my job at a smallish non-profit and now work at a large name brand corporation. if you want to know which one you can email me and ask. the funding picture had become precarious, and i'd been kind of feeling the itch to leave for some time and not sure what to do/where to go. a friend who worked at the corporation encouraged me to apply for a contract position, as that was how he'd gotten hired on full-time. so i did, and now i find myself in the umpteenth different job/career path. again. next i will join the circus. i feel pretty good about it though.
to say that it is a change is an understatement. my old job had 9 people in the whole organization. now, gosh, i have no idea how many people work at this company. way more than nine. i have a photo badge that i have to swipe at the gate on the ground floor to get past the front desk. i'm learning a whole new vocabulary and process for my job and it makes my brain hurt sometimes, but i've realized that i like figuring things out and it's fast paced, so it's been good to give my head a workout. i'm looking forward to getting to know my new coworkers, that's what keeps me entertained/engaged at work.

jellyfish addendum

talking to my quasi-nephew, ping (he's 6), the other day:

me: hey ping, what color are jellyfish?
ping: clear!

there ya go.

last week, i went to one of those after-hours museum events, where they keep it open late play loud music and serve booze, so you can drink with your friends and learn stuff at the same time.

i was in the aquarium section of the Academy of Sciences, and staring at this really cool tank of jellyfish. such intricate-looking creatures. these two dudes walk up next to me, and one says to his buddy something like, "oh cool they're like chameleons!" my eyes got really big at hearing this, because these particular jellyfish were translucent - there were lights in the tank that periodically changed colors to red and blue and green and such (like how some cheesy hot tubs have these lights that change colors).

i stood there a little longer to see if he realized what he just said. then i hear, "how do they know to change to the same color at the same time?" waited 5 more seconds to see if his buddy would say anything, which he did not. then i had to leave quickly to get around the corner to start laughing really hard and find my friends to tell them about it. oh man.

the parentals

i stopped by my parents' house the other day to say hi. still seems weird to say that, even though i moved out several months ago. anyway, they were in rare form.

my dad was in the backyard gardening. in a sombrero. the sombrero that chevy's fresh mex gives you when it's your birthday. said sombrero was given to my youngest brother david at least 12 years ago, because it appeared to be a child-size sombrero from the way it was perched atop my dad's head. it had ben gathering dust in one of my brothers' old rooms for a while. granted, it was cinco de mayo, so maybe he was feeling festive.

then when i got up off the couch to leave, my mom walked past me holding a perfume sample that she had pulled out of a magazine. while she was saying goodbye to me, she proceeded to rub the sample all over our poor family cat, bosco. i was floored - that can't be good for the cat. she said some thing like, "now when i pet her, she smells good." as far as i could tell, bosco had no smell. at least, no smell that needed to be covered by some random perfume sample.

lord only knows what else is happening at home. amazing.

fireside chats

i don't have a tv at my new place. i have one back in danville, but i haven't been particularly motivated to bring it over.

since the baseball season started, i've been listening to the baseball game most nights. switching between the a's and giants. it's been fun.  i putter around and make dinner with the game in the background. good times. feels very 1940's.

it's saturday night, i'm listening to the livestream of Coachella on Youtube (Bon Iver! Radiohead!), and i'm finishing up my notes for teaching at high school youth group tomorrow. this is an optimistic estimation. i will probably be up for a while still mulling things over.

writing an essay or story makes me commit words to a page and i stick by them; rather, it is that i can just put the paper down, walk off and not have to be there when someone reads it. my notes for public speaking are like an early draft of a story; and i always think of other things to say or add while i'm actually teaching and people are looking at me, i can't just stick to what i have done on the page, and that's when i start sweating profusely, if i haven't already been doing so. good times.

so it's about doubt, and wondering why God is silent with us sometimes, basically. it is infuriating when that happens, yes? among other feelings/adjectives. i have to say though, even though sometimes i wish otherwise, that i love following a God that is mysterious, one that i can't figure out or outgrow, than one that has just laid out everything for me in a checklist, so to speak. man, sometimes i'd really love a checklist, rather than feeling like i'm stumbling around in the dark. but where is the faith in that? i've got most of my notes, and who knows what i'll add in when it comes to me (hopefully not much) but this quote from anne lamott (who i think i love, among many reasons, because she writes about how bad she is at being a christian and i'm like, amen, sister)will make it in there somewhere:

"I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”

i saw and heard anne lamott read from her newest book tonight, Some Assembly Required, a memoir of her grandson's first year. she remains the only writer who has made me laugh out loud when i read her words.

as wonderful and inspiring as it is to hear her, which i have done so a few times now - it's great to be in the same area as her - i also leave feeling pretty chickenshit about my lack of writing practice. which sucks - i have only myself to blame for that.

life just seems to get in the way. not even good stuff like traveling, or like a really good date, or hell, i don't know, wrestling an alligator. it's getting home after work and being tired even though you sat in a chair all day. or paying the bills and fretting over debt. or freakin' facebook sucking you in and then suddenly it's super late and you need to get up way too soon to go sit in a chair again all day. it's numbing and hard to pay attention to what is going on around you - the ordinary and extraordinary that provide the material to write.