blog@cliffdweller

[a quick note: I wrote this post a few days ago and scheduled it to go up tonight at 11:59pm. But now that today is here, I don't feel like posting the original. So, too bad if you were lured in expecting another list. Instead you get to see me pontificate a bit.]

I'm in a very unusual space. It's hard to describe it, really. The company is in the throes of taking off (finally!), I am in a stable, committed relationship (and we both believe we should both be committed on a daily basis, almost) and everything is finally rolling together.

Weird, I know. Is this a midlife crisis? Two answers for that: no, and no. No, it's not my midlife, and no, it's not a crisis (altho, I do have my eyes out for the PYT at the video store – the number one reason why I don't re-up the ties to netflix).

And speaking of the video store, tonight I rented and watched The Celestine Prophecy. I read the book back when I was at 3DO. I remember liking the book a lot, but I don't remember much about the specifics. I was excited that they made a movie but wasn't able to catch it when it was at Cinema 21 a few months ago. Then voila, it showed up at the video store. More on the movie later, but first I'm going to digress into my experience of reading the book.

Tina, the chick in the next cube loaned me the book after I moved into Building 3. At 3DO, I ended up as a part of the hardware team, but not The Hardware, only the hardware. So we weren't initially in Building 1 where The Hardware people lived, nor were we in Building 5 where the marketing and execs (and the blessed studio) people lived. We were the bastard step children in Building 3. Where shipping lived.

Some of the folks in Building 3 said that when I got the CEO to come over to my cube for hors d'oeuvres (actually day-old Hostess cup cakes and snowballs chopped up into quarters and served on semi-fine crystal), that it was the first time in the company's 5 year history that he had been to Building 3. I don't know if that was true, but it was certainly the only time I ever saw him there.

Anyway, Tina was a chick from Dallas who coded away the days in the cube next to mine. At 3DO we always had little dolls and japanese toys (a la power rangers? godzillas? loch ness monsters?) and mcdonalds happy meal toys etc lining our cube walls. I discovered at some point that I could aim all the toys and stuffed animals in my cube so they were looking over the top of the cube at her and it really weirded her out.

so of course, I'd aim them all at her every morning.

She'd scream when she walked in and then we'd take 20 minutes while she re-arranged them. I only really remember doing it to her twice, but I'm sure I did it much more than that, what with my addictive-to-tease-the-girl-in-the-next-cube personality.

She paid me back by loaning me The Celestine Prophecy and I read it.

The movie was ok. It stirred some of that up for me again. It makes me feel really lonely and isolated, stuck inside this body of mine. It makes me feel like I can accomplish anything I want, which is a tenant that I have always believed, but sometimes don't feel. It makes me long for the past, and the future, which is very odd because part of it's message is about living in the present.

So that's where I'm coming from. That's where I'm at. I guess I should close with an actual "best of 2007…" moment. So here goes.

Best of 2007? That'd have to be life. Living thru it and having the experience is the best of.

I warned you I was in a strange place, but you wouldn't listen. Maybe you should just sit back and have a cupcake. And if all the dolls are staring at you, enjoy the notoriety for a while.