The Impression of SpiralnessWow. It's 9:39pm, on Thursday, August the 12th, 1999. I just saw The Sixth Sense. It was incredibly moving. Sometimes I think I just get more and more sentimental as time passes, other times I'm sure of it (though, to be fair, sentimentality runs in my blood: like my height, I inherited it from my grandfather). If you haven't seen this film yet, do so. Now. Go away, buy a ticket, watch the film, come back later. What, did you think I was kidding or something? Sometimes something or someone comes along, and they just make your world pivot--you're suddenly standing on a world 90 degrees left of center from where you were moments before. There's not really much else to say: you look around, everything looks like it should be familiar, like you should connect to it in some manner that you know should be right. But it isn't, somehow. You recogize everything, but, somehow, what you recognize isn't really what you're seeing, but what you think, what you remember, what you expect. And suddenly, you see for the first time. Really: go see The Sixth Sense. It may not change your life, but then again it may. Or maybe it'll just act as a catalyst for all the strange, sideways thoughts you've been having for the past several months, and while maybe it won't change your life, just perhaps it'll tweak your paradigm sufficiently that you'll feel new to the world around you. The Impression of Spiralness is like that: it's the slightly-dizzy feeling that comes over you when you're in love; it's when you are so alive that each of your senses stands out--pure and sharp and clear--to the point that you can appreciate the majesty of every leaf on the tree that has grown outside your home for as long as you've lived there; it's when you feel suddenly at home in your world, in your life, and it feels good. I've been feeling this way for months now, really, and while it continues to baffle me (after all, I'm not in love, haven't had sex in aeons, live alone, and commute too far each day to a job that has the inspirational value of rubber dishwashing gloves), I've given up questioning the why? behind it. I just love it, live it, and move on. Scary, but quite refreshing from much of the rest of my recent-ish life :-) The Bio Stuff. Really.Well, since May my life's remained on the insane-trainwreck pace that has been "normal" since I began to work for Sprint. I think I've finally wised-up as to the cause for much of the stress, lack of sleep, and All Things Bad in my life. (While it's not quite that bad, I've begun to look elsewhere for other--perhaps non-technical?--jobs). June was a pretty cool month: two of my dearest friends married on June 12th (you can check out shots from the wedding at VGuest.com: login as David_Susan_Burgett, with the password Floral (both are case-sensitive). The VGuest.com site is a Yo! Creations effort (David's company), who also provide web service for black dog imageworks). Their wedding went beautifully, and was outside in Antioch Park (in Overland Park, KS) on a Saturday afternoon. Many things went wrong during the week prior to the ceremony, including the limos and chairs cancelling at the last minute, but everything worked out in the end. The reception afterward was a blast, and was more fun than I've had in quite a while! The weekend after the wedding, I flew to NJ for my sister Alison's graduation from grammar school. I visited with a chunk of my extended family, got plastered with my younger brother Brian (who's looking for an HR-type job if anyone wants to lend a hand) and our cousin Maureen and her boyfriend Mark, and returned to Kansas in time on Sunday to celebrate my friend Meredith's birthday (she's the "mysterious muse" I mentioned last month; we both decided that the whole romantic thing wasn't going to work out, and remain good friends; this is cool, but leaves me out questing for love yet again...). We watched Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, which was fun if mindless. Then I left on the 30th for Colombus, Ohio, for the Origins gaming show, July 1 through 4th. EHP didn't run any events at the show, but we broke even, and John and I had a blast: we partied as only gaming industry people can (in general they rank up there with writers and journalists), and I got to renew my acquaintance with several cool folks (in no particular order):
We all partied hard, watched the Origins Awards, ate some mahi-mahi at a great restaurant across from the convention center (I can't recall the name, sorry), and otherwise had a raucous good time. The remainder of July sped by. The weekend after Origins I visited with my old friend Elizabeth Borzcon, who was in town to defend her dissertation of personal essays, and also trekked out to Miami County to celebrate with Chris Richardson (his barn still stands after one year--rather amazing, given some of the storms that have lanced through there over the past year). My roommate Aaron Harris moved to California on the 9th, to go to work for @Home Networks as a NOC router guy. The following week my good and dear friend Tony Maeller moved to California (though he stayed with Sprint, the poor guy ;->. The following week Doug Hesse (yes, he of the infamous black dog imageworks' The Belly Button book project) threw a house warming party. While not being social (which wasn't too often, in fact), I also managed to party with David and Susan; play racquetball twice (perhaps even three times!); spoke to Dell customer support more times between June 21 and August 13 than there are days in a month (and yes, they are finally sending me a new laptop); have an EHP meeting; buy some cool stuff from Karen Cross (who also left Sprint--what is it that all these people know that I don't yet?) including some new silver, a jacket, a hat, a few CD's, and a pile of books; I saw several films including "Drop Dead Gorgeous" (irreverent and hilarious), "The Blair Witch Project" (incredibly suspenseful, but not horrifying), "The Sixth Sense" (go see it now), ; August Thus FarGen Con; rented "Cube," "The Myth of Fingerprints" Near-Future StuffThe EndThat wraps up this quarterly installment of life, the universe, and everything (or at least from my POV). You can always read my current-ish bio, less-current bio, older bio, still older bio, and yet-older life notes for less-current glimpses into my warped psyche. If you do read all that far back, please be sure to tell me, so that I can think that these pages still serve some vague function :-) Return to Imrryr. |