My Anchor....

So, the other day, my cousin's wife read my coffee grinds.

That's right, I said coffee grinds... Apparently an old gypsy who lived upstairs in a complex her parent's owned taught her how. I shit you not.

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I don't play with that kind of stuff. Never paid a psychic, had tarot read, fortune told, etc. I have an issue with people monetizing that kind of thing.

However this was just something my cousin did... so, because she's family now, I went with it.

She read my brother first, and was eerily accurate. She talked about my brother's new relationship without being told about, and details about it as well. Like that they're mushy... which they are.

Ok... fine. Then me. Also, right on. Everything I'm working on will go well (gotta love predictions of good fortune). However I've been burned badly by a recent relationship (Dzia, which she totally knew nothing about... in fact... no one did.... cause I haven't told anyone... err... wanted to talk about it at all actually) and that due to that burn I've totally separated out my relationship stuff for at least the next year and a half (till most movie promotion stuff is done, dead on) but at the end of that I'll probably end up with the person I'm going to be with. She said, "You're going to find your anchor in life."

I had never thought of that 'elusive someone' as an "anchor". At first I joked about, oh great... someone to weigh me down and keep me in one place... but the more I thought about it the more that kinda made sense.

Someone who can keep me grounded. Let's me float on top of the water but not get carried away. Holds me securely in a storm. But someone who can come with me on all my journeys and travels. Someone who is an important part of everything I do and the places I will go in life.

I never used the image of an 'anchor' as an analogy for "her" before...

Now, I don't imagine I'll ever not think of her that way.

What happens when you stare at a screen and the dam finally breaks....

So, I made the decision this weekend that I'm not staying on another year in Philadelphia. I'm relieved, but not happy. In a way, it feels like I've failed. I've failed at moving out and supporting myself on my own. Now, I have to crawl back to my parents house and live there and save money before I try again. In reality it's nothing like that. My parents would most likely have helped me pay the few bills that I needed help with, and supported me as I needed for at least another year at which time I might have been able to save up enough to keep on making a go of it. No, I wouldn't have had a big nest egg to work with, if any.... but who does now? I read so often about friends who are making it paycheck to paycheck, moving around restlessly, searching desperately for roommates to bring the bills down to a barely reasonable level, and part of me thinks, "yeah, that's what this time of life is all about".

But then Vulcan logic kicks in and I remember a piece of advice I once gave to a girl I thought I was going to marry. This was my High School Sweetheart and we were both going through college application craziness. She was applying to a whole bunch of schools that she really wanted to get into and taking it as seriously as most guidance counselors tell most high school students they should. I, on the other hand, hadn't yet even begun to fill out my one page application to community college because I knew I was going there and they don't reject anyone, so why worry?

In retrospect, I think she resented me for that. We planned to take our SAT's on the same day so we could go to the park after we had finished. She went to bed early that night before, ate a breakfast and was there 20 minutes early, just like her Princeton Review course had told her to be. I didn't take any courses, didn't go to bed any earlier, slept in too late, and went to take the test in the shorts and t-shirt that I had slept in. My bed-head conveniently camouflaged under a New York Yankees baseball cap.

She, being a music major (the first of many major changes), had the benefit of an audition where she could prove that she was better than her SAT's said she was. I knew that's where she would shine. I could listen to her sing for hours (less if she chose to sing soprano, but when she sang alto... endless), smile watching her connect with 3-5 year old's until my face was sore, or drift into such a peaceful state listening to her flute echo throughout the church sanctuary. Being with her, made me know that if no other quality, being musically inclined would be one of the quickest ways into my heart.

I digress. She had a contact, a teacher, at her first choice school who her father played with regularly in a band. He mentioned to her father, knowing her talent was more than tests and grades showed, that if she ever decided to come to his school to let him know and he'd help her out. Now, this wouldn't have disproportionately advantaged her against any other applicant, rather, leveled the playing field so to speak. My advice to her at the time (spoken with a heavy grain of religious salt) was that, "[If God] had given you this contact, this ability, isn't it unnecessarily handicapping yourself [and going against God's Will] not to use everything you've been given to accomplish what you want?"

As luck, chance, [God?] would have it, I was born to extraordinary parents, who have enough confidence in how they raised me that they will selflessly give to me above and beyond the call of other parents knowing I won't let them down. Was I entirely out of money for living in Philly? No. Between no interest offers and loans from friends who'd I'd loaned large amounts of money in the past, could I make it? Yes. Would it be easy and would I have much, besides saying I lived in Philly for 2 years, to show for it? No. So I'd be 2 years behind in what life should be [I guess], and have little if any savings to start some real attempt at a stable life because frankly, working 35 hours a week, and commuting 30 hours a week at a minimum is not realistic for anyone.

DS called it before I even really felt it. She knew that this was ridiculous and that I need to stop being whatever I was being and do what needed to be done. As we sat in the Vietnamese place for lunch, "So you're not happy with life at the moment"
"No."
"You're not happy with your commute and overall lack of free time."
"No."
"You're not even happy with the way you look or feel physically."
"Nope."
"Then what the hell are you doing?"
And of course, she was right. I think my trip out to see her was the first step, and my weekend spent at home, just at home this past weekend was the second and final step. I've got someplace to go home too which I've always had. I'm already in the routine of paying out for rent, utilities, etc, so now I can keep that up and just pay it right into a savings account (which my father has agreed to keep so I'm not stupid with the extra money floating around). I'm used to missing 30 hours a week, so now I can take that time, put an extra 2 a day to sleeping (bringing it from 4 hours a night back up to 6ish) and focus those other 4 hours on creative endeavors. I'm going to start keeping a "creative log" of sorts to make sure I don't squander my newfound time on stupid things, like getting lost on the Internet or something else unproductive. I want to try painting. I want to get back to writing music. I need to have 8,000 words in an intelligible novelette or few chapters of a novel by June 30th for a week long Science Fiction writing seminar I want to attend. I'd like to put Linux on my laptop, and make it fully functional on my desktop. I'd like to go rock climbing with Superman again. I'd like to not run myself into the ground during the week, and have to sleep at 12 hour clips on the weekend to catch up.

And now, that it's 3:49ish and I've managed to combine what looks like at least 3 individual posts in to one (possibly) semi-coherent ramble, I'm going to sleep. I'm also reserving the right to edit this once I'm awake and, well... awake.

I love Germans... and other various happenings

It's 3:30am and in the past week I've had enough meat and beer to kill a small elephant. Seriously, I'm not trying to stereotype an entire culture, but the 5 Germans that I've spent time with this past week really do live on beer, bread, meat, and cheese. Like, woah. Just this weekend, we've gone through almost 7 or 8 pounds of London Broil steak, and 4 cases of beer(not counting what we had out at bars). If you're thinking, "wow, that sounds really excessive" you're right. It is excessive, but lucky for my body 2 have left already, 2 leave tomorrow, and that leaves only one German here until the middle of April.

Besides the 'blitzkreig' on my digestive system, it's been such a blast having them here. M has been home on spring break, Surfer just got back from a stay in costa rica(for surfing), and since almost all the Germans have been friends of GC's he's been around all the time too. The cool thing about that, is that all 4 of us took an extensive amount of German in high school (personally, German 1,2,3,4,and AP, as well as a 201 and 301 in college, while both M, Surfer, and GC have spent a minimum of 6 months in Germany at one time or another in addition to the classes in school) So we'll be sitting around talking, or huddling by a bonfire to keep warm(like tonight) and spend 70% of the conversation all speaking in German. I've used my German more in the last two weeks then I have in the last two years combined and the improvement I can hear in myself is quite refreshing. I know that I've lost sooooo much having not spoken it often, but it's also coming back much quicker than I expected.

In other, non-German related news... the Intranet I have been developing since November finally went live on Thursday!!! It's still a bit sparse and a little rough, but it's up for testing and the scores of suggestions that I hope to get for content. It wasn't without it's glitches though. So, one of the things my boss's boss (the one who assigned me this project) wanted was a way for the counselors to all communicate with each other and have an interactive calendar for events they want to let other counselors know about. So I did my research and found an module for the PHPBB2.0.23 bulletin board/forum program. Great, it does everything we wanted and we couldn't ask for more. Well, I get the message Thursday freaking morning, that the servers we're hosting the Intranet on, are not allowed to have the language PHP installed on them. That forum, is made entirely in PHP. About 20 minutes later, I have a 4 page sheet on my desk outlining all the languages and programs that are either preferred, accepted, or denied. Would this not have been helpful for me to have oh... say... back in NOVEMBER!!!! I told boss's boss that he can forget about his counselor communication method for the foreseeable future until I find something else that will work. Luckily for me, he's also a geek like myself and knew exactly how stupid it was for them to refuse to install PHP and didn't blame me for it in any way.

After work on Thurs my boss, MJ, and I all went out for a few drinks to celebrate MJ's birthday. It was a lot of fun even just the 3 of us. We all get along really well, both in a professional and personal environment. I'm sure though, that we looked like quite the odd gathering, a man almost in his 50's with kids starting college, a woman in her 30's with a guide dog, and a 24 year old just getting started. Personally, I think my boss just wanted to hear stories of MJ and I when we were in college so he had an idea what his daughters were actually doing while they were away at school, especially since I've spent weekends parting at the school his eldest now goes to.

Saturday(technically today), I'm taking my mother to see a play of Macbeth staring Patrick Stewart(Captain Jean Luc Piccard/ Professor X) in Brooklyn. It will be my second time going and I'm so very excited.... again. The first time was utterly amazing, and I look forward to any more nuisances that I can pick up on this time around.

Sunday we'll undoubted do our traditional hunt for plastic, money filled easter eggs. We've done it every year as long as I can remember, and I still find it amazing that my father can hide those eggs in the same room for 10 years and my brother and I still usually have trouble finding the last few. After dinner then I head back to Philly, just about for good. I've got monthly train passes for April from Philly, basketball and indoor soccer leagues(kickball was canceled much to my dismay) start in just under 3 weeks, and I'd like to actually spend some time living in my apartment and city. Wednesday E and I are headed to a 76ers game and at some point the last German and GC are coming in to hang out and see the bars... I mean... sights :-)