endings and beginnings
I feel nostalgic and a little melancholy this morning. Some of it was due to my dreams last night, some due to the subtle realizations of what in my life is still not in balance, some because tomorrow I start my new job, meaning I’m in day 10 of my 10 day break.

10 days. Longest break I’ve had since Madeleine was born, and if you don’t count that, we could be going back to my unemployment in late 2000. I suppose it’s inevitable that at the end of such a stretch you don’t want to go back to the “real” world. While I think I accomplished a lot in the past nine days, there’s so much I didn’t touch. Monday-Friday last week I did produce just shy of 12000 word on two new stories; that feels good. I did get a few movies watched and several books read. Lots of gardening done (though my wife did as much if not more of that than me), one morning of clothes shopping achieved (a chore I hate), some decent cooking/bbq’ing done, golfing with siblings, M’s game with immediate family and siblings. All in all, I did what I was supposed to do, I think, and feel pretty good about how I spent my time.

Today will be spent housecleaning (something I totally neglected over the preceding week) and preparing for tomorrow. I have to get my stuff in order, figure out where exactly I’m going (not quite sure of how to get to the building I need to be at by 7:30 a.m.), and other logistics. Then there are the funny little rituals I feel the need to do with a new job, like erasing all the music on my iPod and selecting a new combination of tunes (funny considering I doubt I’ll even have time to listen to it my first week or two.) I really don’t have a roadmap for this situation; on one hand, I’m going back to a company and place where I know most of the people, and on the other, I’m going in as the person in charge with different responsibilities from when I was last there. Plus, it’s been almost two years, I’ve changed a lot personally and professionally, and it’s reasonable to assume others have as well. Most of the time I’m pretty calm about tomorrow, but I have occasional, random bouts of worry where I’m nervous and worried I’ll totally blow it somehow. I guess that’s probably normal.

Recently I brought my two boxes of comic books back from the storage unit. I haven’t collected comic books seriously since my freshman year of high school, but I kept everything I did collect over those years. There’s something comforting about them; I like having them nearby even if I don’t touch them for years at a time. Like it keeps a certain innocence alive, a certain dreaming, if you will. I’m sure comic books planted just as much inspiration in me to tell stories as books did. What I really like to pull out and read, oddly, is my ¾ complete collection of the The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition. I say oddly because the series is basically an encyclopedia, with few illustrations but tons of text detailing the origins and storylines of characters in the Marvel Universe, circa 1986-87. Reading them is not like reading a comic book, but reading really short stories, sort of. Or: reading an encyclopedia. For whatever strange reason, reading them every few years makes me really happy. Some day I really need to get the four or five issues I’m missing and complete the set. I can remember checking the drug store faithfully every couple weeks for a new issue when they were coming out. I guess that was 23 years ago. How time does go, eh?

I’d like to be able to take it at least a little easy today; it feels like there is so much to do that we won’t get it all done anyway. I’m not sure if I’ll get anymore writing done. One thing that I’m hoping is that once I settle in, this job will mentally free me more for writing than my previous one. I think this is possible, but until I’m in the situation for awhile, it’s hard to know. It was hard to miss how different the creative process feels when you can just sit down for an hour or two at a time, vs. how I normally have to do it. But regardless of circumstance, I’ll figure out a way to keep on working at it. I’m not gonna stop writing, that’s for sure.

My coffee cup is nearly empty; it is time to get on with the day.