While Tim is (hopefully) at home sleeping off his jetlag, I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing him and Lisa the very best on their 5th wedding anniversary. It’s times like this that being on opposite coasts really bites; a card and phone call hardly seem adequate. Fortunately, they’re both sensible people who know a good thing when they see it, so while I can’t help them celebrate in person on the 5th, hopefully I’ll catch them on the 10th through 50th and beyond.
Month: October 2002
Back
I got in a few hours ago. It was a decent flight, except that one of the bottles of wine (red, of course) that I purchased for Lisa broke in my suitcase, staining my clothes and my hardback copy of The Secret History. Quite jetlagged. I think I’ll be going home…
Blast from the Past: Rag & Bone
One of my old creations has a website now: Rag & Bone, a literary magazine at Virginia. I had thought it had disappeared. They’re still doing good work; I love the redesign, although they did lose our visual branding.
There are four lights
It’s one year since Mark’s boss told him to destroy his weblog and choose between his private and public work. He’s never looked back. If you never read what he wrote that day, go back and look. It’s the definition of principle and grace under the worst kind of pressure.
Change
I’m sitting in a hotel room in Cambridge writing this. (Thank God for enlightened hotels with broadband.) I just left one of two company presentations that I’m involved with today at MIT Sloan. Got a chance to see a very high energy evangelist from my company talk about where we’re going in the mobility market. Talked to a few grad students about my experiences so far. Even though I’m operating on about three hours of sleep, it felt really good. In fact, I felt “at home” in a way that I have rarely felt since I started this job in July.
I wonder about that. More than most other people I know (or maybe they do a better job of hiding it) I really go into a shell when I go into a new experience. I could be on top of the world one day, as I sometimes felt at Sloan (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) and go into a new situation the next and totally withdraw. There have been times over the last month where I’ve just shaken with frustration over my inability to engage, to act, to do anything. It’s like a crippling fear of leaving my office.
Today all that was gone. I think there’s something about just being in the old environment where I was on top that makes it easier even to admit to myself what I just wrote. I wonder if this is something everyone goes through. I know I felt it to an extent when I started at Sloan until I got my feet under me.