not a trace

November 2, 2003


There's not a trace of the feeling of "the doom of InfiniBand" and "the doom of Starship Startup" that I described in yesterday's entry anywhere in the November/December entries from last year though I remember struggling against them at the time. I browsed some more through past entries trying to locate the exact moment at which my life fell apart. I didn't find it. Not a trace. I guess it wasn't a sudden thing happening all at once but a gradual decline. Maybe I should consult some kindergarteners in Kentucky to find out what new technology I should hitch my wagon to. Either that or be first in line when the bait shop is hiring come fishing season. I wonder if there are any openings at Emergency Ice Co. on Bridge Rd.

I'm actually not sure why what seems to be coming out the ends of my fingers onto the page is so gloomy. I don't feel particularly depressed despite the overcast skies and the fact that I have not been out of my house at all for two days for no apparent reason. Well, no apparent reason except that the buses don't run on Sunday here off the edge of the universe, which doesn't explain why I didn't go anywhere on Saturday except that I didn't need scallions or anything. I was much more pessimistic about the economy and the costs of war last winter. I'm pessimistic about my future because I'm too old to work in high-tech anymore and too young to qualify for social security and medicare and my therapist thinks I'm joking about getting a job in a bait shop. I took one of those online skills inventory things at one or another of the job hunting sites and found that the careers I am most suited for are executive management (been there, done that, got the t-shirts), middle management, management management, engineering, and geology. Geology? There weren't any questions about rocks on the inventory. Maybe geology is the career for me. I can just see me in the oil fields of some forsaken Middle Eastern desert or frozen Siberian tundra...

We are still at war, or excitement, despite the end of formal hostilities. But the economy is rebounding according to the numbers, proving that you can so have both guns and butter.

I got up from writing this and went downstairs to watch the 11:00 news. When I saw that two civilian contractors were blown up in Iraq I had to come back up here and check the CNN web site to see if they were from BiB's company even though I know he's home in Hungary. They weren't. They're still dead though. And they are somebody's brother, son, father, boyfriend ... just like all the soldiers in the helicopter that got shot down are brothers/sisters, sons/daughters, mothers/fathers... if war is the answer what was the question?

Today's Reading
End of the Earth by Peter Matthiessen, Two Roads to Dodge City by Adam and Nigel Nicolson

This Year's Reading
2003 Book List


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Copyright © 2003, Janet I. Egan