Life, Housing, and Geneva

I'm happier than ever, I'm more confused than I've been before.

Life is, as a friend once said, "phasatious" - but how quickly so! We humans live such chemical lives, and I'm not even talking about illicit drugs, or even alchohol or anything. It's just a matter of, for instance, what time you get up. How much you slept the previous night, when (or if) you eat breakfast. If you're in shape. All of these things can so subtly affect not just your simple behaviors but your mood.

This morning, I drove to work in my convertible and was, briefly, happy. The wind and the sun and some music...then work. Don't get me wrong, I love my work -- every day I'm amazed by just how much more intelligent and focused my coworkers are than me, but some days, I feel like my mind just shuts off a bit and I sit like a moron, unable to figure simple things out. I hate days like that.

My housing situation is totally screwed for right now. I have two weeks to find a place. hacker dojo is getting bought out, so we can't live in our palace any more. =( If you know of any 5-6+ bedroom houses for rent within easy reach of both Palo Alto and San Francisco, let me know. =/

My happiness seems to fluctuate like the wind. In terms of material satisfaction, it's there. I have everything that, materially, I'd ever need to make me happy. But the fact that I'm feeling unfulfilled speaks of the human condition. There's more to it. That's refreshing. I'm honestly glad to know that despite my gall and hubris, I have not, indeed, reached my peak of accomplishment at 23. You know those people that fondly daydream about their high school years and can't live in the present? They're kind of pathetic; they can't wake up to the possibility that the future could be better. I don't want that.

Geneva, incidentally, was pretty fantastic. The conference was very small and poorly organized (the woman running the show was keeping everything in her head and decided to quit a week before the conference!), but even still, it was a real gem. Just travelling was great; getting to know people from Hong Kong, Singapore, Mali (did you know Timbuktu is in Mali??), Ethiopia, and Nepal, just to name a few. Graham and I were actually the only folks from the USA at all! (Actually, a BP representative who was living in the UK was there and she was born in the USA, but that doesn't count.)

I had a six-hour stopover in London on my way in. I had been talking with this guy in the seat next to me who was on his way overseas for the first time -- going to Poland. We hit it off pretty well and both of us had long stopovers, so we decided to go adventuring in London together. I loved London! In the whirlwind tour we took, we went through so many amazing historical landmarks it made my head hurt (Paddington Station (home of Paddington Bear!), the place where vaccine was invented, the place where Charles Dickens wrote many of his popular books, Baker Street of Sherlock Holmes fame, and Madame Touseau's Wax Museum (we didn't go in: the line was an hour long!)). I had expected London to be dirty, rude, and ugly. Instead it was clean, superfriendly, and full of beautiful people. It was very modern and very historical all at once and radiated this magnetic charm that just let me knew I'd be back.

Geneva was a lot different. It was a "quaint" city in many ways. Stunningly beautifully set by the Alps on Lake Geneva, it's international and yet very mellow. "There isn't much to do in Geneva," the clerk at a Sherlock Holmes museum in London warned me, "for the fun, I'd advise Ibiza or Amsterdam". Ah well. All the same, the evenings were plenty fun, carousing with groups of people from the conference and talking about affairs serious and trite. Stewart, from the International Federation of Library Associations, blew apart my notion of librarian as a crotchety old lady. Young, funny as hell, and very sharp, the buzz-cut Brit was the center of the party, and made the group work. Great stuff. He, Graham, and I were sharing a beer outside a pub, noisily (and delightfully) discussing technology when a fellow walked up to us from the street and started asking difficult questions about clustering Microsoft Terminal Servers. Heh.

I need to travel. I need to sleep well. I need to be cleaner and to be in the sun more. I need to have more deep conversations.

For now, it's time to address point #2.