I think I’m gonna stay home
Have myself a home life
Sitting in the slow-mo
And listening to the daylight
I am not a nomad
I am not a rocket man
I was born a house cat
By the slight of my mother’s hand
I was watching Catch Me If You Can, a great movie to be sure, but one not destined to be remmebered as such. Good visuals, interesting characters involved in an interesting plot. And what can i say, i’m a Tom Hanks fan. And as Frank was leaving to get on an airplane towards the end of the movie, after he’s working with the FBI, i saw the old repeated image of man as adventure seeker. Never to be caged in.
It was then that it hit me that i haven’t felt that much recently. I used to occassionablly feel wanderlust, the desire to just drop everything, get in my car and drive in a direction. I always characterize it as itchy feet. It’s only ever really ended in anything when John and i headed down to San Antonio that one night. I wonder how strong that desire for adventure is in men, in Wild at Heart it’s posited that it’s central to our very identity, and as i read that book, there was something inside me that kept pumping it’s fist and saying “Yeah” with increasing volume (i like to refer to that voice as my inner-Telschow). I think a large amount of my thirst for adventure is slaked mentally, and this is going to sound amazingly nerdy, but when i’m tackling a hard problem whether it be in code, or in problem solving or in math or whatever, i get a little adrenaline rush. That’s why i’m so tired at the end of days when i’m really in the zone, i’ve been strung out on a chemical high all day, and by the time the bus stops and i fall through the door i’ve crashed.
Yesterday, at noon, a service that i rely on was down on our development farm, so i basically was unable to develop for the last 6 hours of the day (at some point i started getting to work around 9:40 and leaving on the 6:40 shuttle) and it was worse than boredom, i felt kinda trapped. Trapped with an amazing view, a great environment and the entire internet at my fingertips to play with. The biggest mockery of all is that there’s only 3 walls and no door. I was a prisoner with no barrier to escape. But i guess i’m not the first person ever to feel more defined when hemmed in by boundaries than when free.
When i started writing this, my intention was to discuss my increasing desire for a more domestic lifestyle, maybe somehow bringing into it the fact that i haven’t lived with my family in our house for a whole week since last summer. I think that’s why Leslie Peck’s wonderful chicken dinner was so wonderful, not because it was the most food i had eaten in a month, but because it was the first homecooked meal i had had in so long i couldn’t remember. Glancing back over what i’ve written to this point makes me scratch my head since i see at work two distinct, if not opposed desires. The desire to settle down and the desire to adventure. But less extreme than that: the desire for home and the desire to overcome obstacles.
Anyway, my thoughts are becoming more and more fuzzy as i type so i think i’ll just hit submit here pretty soon before heading off to bead. Looking over this, reflecting and distilling my thoughts down to their essense: all i really want is to get paid to do tech support in baked goods. And that’s happened at least twice, and i’m owed an apple crisp by a certain vegetarian.