Tuesday, September 30, 2008

We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover

Those of you who know me understand how I have this strange ability or affliction to attach events to songs... so this morning this wonderful song keeps running through my head, from a musical that I am not all that enamored with... Annie. 

It strikes me as unbelievable that the men and women that we send to Washington DC can fail time and time again to discern when it is in the country's best interest not to listen to popular opinion. Of course it makes sense along an issue like gay marriage where one side of the aisle believes the world is black and white and there is no gray, let alone color... but when it comes to our economic well being, how can these men and women be so short sighted. 

So yesterday along largely ideological lines the House of Representatives defeated the economic recovery package sending the world's financial markets into a tail spin. We are quick to point out that it wasn't the worst fall... by percentage... but it was the biggest number, 777 points... OUCH. And so we are doomed to continue to ride this roller coaster that is the financial markets of the world, and I am doomed to have more friends and possibly even me, loose their jobs. Many of which now are people that have high positions, executive vice presidents that have given more than 10 years of service to their companies, yes friends that's just how bad it is. 

It is so bad, that I am afraid to call some companies because I am not sure who's still there. And all this brought to you by... our president shrub and his friends who believe that if you just give more money to the rich people and big corporations, surely some of that will dribble down to the rest of us. 

Funny, it would seem that if you give the rich and large corporations more money, they gamble it away trying to make even more. Maybe it's time we try it a different way. Maybe it is, as Barack Obama says, time for a change. Real change. Not the change of, "look at me I'm a Maverick, even though I have been here 40 years". Maybe it's time we put a little money in the pockets of those who make less than $200,000/year and finance it by increasing the taxes on the gamblers who make more than that and have been living high on the hog by the sweat of the rest of our labors. 

Funny the last "tax and spend liberal" who was elected to 8 years left us with a surplus and a booming economy. Let's just remember that as the right tries yet again to make that label stick to the only HOPE we have had in decades. 

Aren't we glad something has distracted me from my personal life? =0) 

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Pain of Change

I apologize if I am stuck recently on the same subjects, namely how my life is changing before my eyes of late, but I find that writing down the raw thoughts in my mind helps me keep moving forward. And they are truly the raw thoughts at the moment I am writing. 

So this is a huge week of transition. One housemate is moving out and we are re-configuring our lives to move on. By Thursday I will likely be alone in the little house on Del Vale with just Peety and Chipdog. It's going to be hard for me, I am dreading it really because it will mark the moment from which nothing will ever be the same. 

That's not to say that things haven't been changing all summer, but there is a finality when someone moves. Somehow it's all irrevocable from there. I suspect I have to get used to that feeling in the pit of my stomach, because I think there is going to be a lot of moving going on in the next year. 

As we all know, change is uncomfortable for the human species, and so I am not an exception. I just struggle so hard to make friends, and we are talking just friends here, that to have my whole friend structure turned on its ear, scares me. It seems like I am going to be forced to travel alone, and explore alone and that's sad. Of course, there will be joint trips and time spent together as friends, but it will never again be what it has been, and so I mourn. 

Someday I will look back on this from some other perspective, and this will all be the beginning of where I am then, god do I wish I could see from that place right now so maybe... just maybe... it wouldn't hurt so much to be where I am now. 

Friday, September 26, 2008

Move On...

As in all times of transition, some days are just better than others. This has very much turned out to be a summer of discovery and transition for me. At times it feels like a forest fire burning through clearing the dead underbrush of my life. Then there are the times when it feels like there is the new grand adventure right in front of me. And then there are days like today when I just wish the pain would stop. That feeling of a raw open wound that is constantly being irritated. 

I have had the Sondheim song Move On running through my head all morning. How I wish it was as easy as those two words. When you find yourself waking up realizing you have been in a relationship of sorts for many years that has all of a sudden come to an end, it's hard to just move on. 

It is these times when I realize just how much I used to do with my peeps. Part of the problem is that I am at once thrilled and inspired for some of the developments, but some of those same developments mean I am no longer necessary. The role I used to fill... or maybe occupy is more correct, is rightfully taken by someone who can give what wasn't mine to give. 

So here I am, struggling to find a new way in my life. Lost in the forest with a forest fire burning behind me, and no clear direction to run. I am convinced there is a beautiful meadow somewhere, I just have to figure out how to find it and where to find my sweet, sexy, intelligent, wonderful guide. Where the HELL are you? 

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Architcture can be humbling

I have been contemplating lately the reach of what I do as an architect. I became an architect primarily because I wanted to create homes. Places for the human race to find refuge from the elements. After all that is what a home is, a place of refuge where we can connect with those we love. 

It's what puzzles me about people who purchase a home as an investment. I think this has been brought on somewhat by we in the housing industry who refer to a group of homes as "product". When we use commodity terms for what we create, how can the public help but look at what they are purchasing in the same way. To that end I have endeavored to remove the word "product" from my work vocabulary when I am discussing what I create each day. Of course my friends all say that all I do is sit around an doodle... and that is true to an extent. 

So I sit here creating homes each day... oh sometimes there are other buildings, but mostly homes. And then one day this summer I landed a project in Dubai. Yes, that Dubai in the UAE. As I was working on those homes earlier this month, it all of a sudden dawned on me that I am creating homes in another country, for another culture, and I was totally humbled. What a trip. These homes have many of the same things that homes here do, after all they did hire a Californian architect. Then you get to the maid's room (barely 7 feet by 7 feet) and you remember you are in a totally different world where space is valued to the point that it isn't wasted on frivolous rooms that are 20 feet wide and 30 feet long. 

Anyway I am humbled by the experience, and thrilled. Maybe I will even get to go there one day and see them built. 

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Some Things Give Me Hope

Specifically two people really... I am blessed to have been given the priveledge of meeting the new guy in my best friend's life. It's of course, too early to tell where this all might lead, but still there is inspiration.

Inspiration that one day, out of the blue, I will find someone who causes me to pause and consider changing course. Someone who will cause me to giggle like I never have before. Someone who will make my eye twinkle with the light of joy that we only find in another human being.

Inspiration that even yet at 46 years old I might find a guy who laughs at my lame jokes and welcomes my best friend into his life like he's always been there.

Inspiration that two lives can intersect without one having to change entirely to coexist with the other.

Inspiration that yet, even still, though he is many years late... he will come.

Thanks Big Bear and Little Dude... you bless me.