I’ve been mainlining tribal knowledge and frameworks and fiddlesticks, manuals and webinars and walk-thrus, 14 hrs to verify simple UI bugs that rely on six degrees of specialization, an isolated self-worthless humiliating thrash for oxygen and relevance. I’ve watched both my daughters born, and it looks better than this. Two months ago I had my hands on the shorthairs of millions of dollars of e-commerce, and today I am learning to raise my head. I will come out the other side, in another month or 2. Breathe Chollaball, you’ve done this before. I REFUSE TO DROWN!

Its not water i’m drowning in, its vampire blood. There’s no going back, at least til the 5 yr sabbatical. I see upside down processes that only make sense given their evolution, code knots so daunting bodies are thrown at them in human waves. I’m hardly the first smart guy to spot these problems, but every life has a narrative that led to its present; companies are no different. Preternatural vision will come soon, when my body finishes dying. I   the free cafe for stress eating, and after what we will call ‘the Paypal 10‘, I will stop binging on peanut butter&apple jacks samiches, and make it a healthy diet. There is a shower, and i can tuck my bike next to my cube. Its close enough to give hugs, but not so close that it crowds me off the bed. I think I will commute on the Bird, as a conversation starter, and since riding the Greenbelt on a 6.5 inch bike is CORE!

I digress…     For 1.5 yrs i had a draft post called ‘Low Level Noise‘, bitching about suburban Scottsdale. It stewed while i acclimated and pondered and was busy trying to balance, then fizzled until all i could hate were the too-important people spending $8k on botox instead of driving lessons, death to pedestrians coming between them and their texts. My buddy Aaron offered a far better and faster summation than my 18 months of reconciling: ‘Scottsdale is a great place for families and kids, but its full of wankers.’

After interminable overthinking, i believe the lesson is best explained thusly:

CRASH: Guy hit the shit outta that one, eh?
NUKE: Well, I held it like an egg.
CRASH: An’ he scrambled the son of a bitch. Having fun yet?
NUKE: I’m having a blast. God, that sucker teed off on it just like he knew I was gonna throw a fastball.
CRASH He did know.
NUKE: How?
CRASH: I told him.
CRASH SMILES — Drops the mask, returns behind the plate.
NUKE SIGHS — Takes a deep breath.
NUKE: Don’t think. Just throw. Don’t think. Just throw.

The last 24 was a good day at work – I solved stuff and white boxxed. Each little win a mortgage payment on an appreciation, buying time or treading water, letting the game come to me, the first time hooking up 3 turns snowboarding, learning to ride a bike. 8 weeks later, I got my first W. All during a week of single-dadding where i’ve miraculously managed to not unload on my kids.

Tomorrow i am going to be dragging. Hooray for bagel day. Who figured a predominantly Indian company would so reliably order my favorite salmon-flavored shmear?