Green Tee Readings

This might be the first part of a limited series, and it also might be a singleton. But it certainly is the contractual post wherein I, your humble blogger, note that another calendar year is almost over and I type out the thoughts stemming from that. No year-end meme usage here, dear reader, instead a few thoughts on things I’ll have to get used to in the coming year.

The most obvious thing that I’ve yet to fully comprehend is the radical alteration of my geography. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing Seattle - Left Lane on a street sign, or on a clear day looking North and seeing Mt St Helens. I mean, shit, I remember writing a class paper in fifth grade about St. Helens, and wanting to go see it. I never figured to live mere hours away. The western part of the country always seemed like an impossibly far away place, somewhere to daydream about, someplace Other, and now I’m here and I get NFL games at 10am. Don’t wake me up quite yet, the daydream of a pregame-less existence is wonderful.

On a smaller scale, I have this new keyboard I’m not familiar enough with, on a new desk, and with a new mouse. Everyday items whose scale and placement I’m conscious of. Stores are laid out slightly differently, too, and with different names. Safeway does not equal Dominicks. Fred Meyer is not at all like Jewel*. To get a bit larger in scale, cosmic even, I have no idea what time it is based on the sun’s position. None. I’m not sure whether it has more to do with being farther North than I’ve been for extended periods of time, or with being so far west in a time zone. I’m not fully sure where North is, either, not all the time. My unthinking directional orientation in the Midwest is gone. Gone. I’m not lost, really, but I have to think through the path I just took to know what direction I’m facing, and what way I need to go next.

It’d be nice if I could bridge that last sentence into this paragraph, and extend it into a metaphor, but I do know where I need to go next; I’m just not sure when I’m going to get there, or in what order those Next Things will get done. That, of course, is something I’ll bring with me into 2010 from 2009.

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