What year was it?

Notable movies released this year:
Star Wars
Mad Max

Quick, what year is it? If you answered with anything, you're wrong. No Star Wars and Mad Max movie ever came out on the same year. But if you guessed 1980something, you'd be sort of right.

It having been several months since I moved, everything is settled, patterns have formed - my life actually feels normal. And not in the 'getting settled after moving' kinda way, but more completely. Before, my work schedule was always variable. My hours worked were a constant source of disconnection with my family and friends. Just the simple change from working 'whenever they schedule me, nights weekends evenings holidays' to 'M-F, 7-3' changed the entire feel of my life. I'm finally in sync with my family, have the same time off as my friends. I see my kids more often, talk to my friends more often. I *do* more.

I do miss Buffalo, but the tradeoff simply wasn't fair. Seeing my kids for 45 minutes a day vs getting tackled when I get home from work and swamped in a sea of lego, plushies, and video games wasn't a choice, it was obvious.

I kicked 2015's but.

Breath

My 8 month old daugher's breath smelled like toast this morning.

Toast. She doesn't even have teeth.

TOAST?

Old CD's

I found my old CD book.

More importantly, it's filled with my old CD's. I haven't bought a CD since... since... I think it was 2005. Anyway, it turns out my taste in music is crazier than I thought.

So I tossed it in my car and decided to listen to it. I can tell I bought some of them just for the one song everyone knew, there are some singles, soundtracks, and bizarre mixes I must have burned at some point.

My commute has become very interesting. J-pop, Phantom of the Opera, Gorillaz, and the Phantom Menace soundtrack. I don't even remember getting half of these. Maybe I didn't. Mysteries upon mysteries.

Dang, I wish my car had an auxiliary port. Or a USB connection. All I have is a CD player, and I finally ran out of blank CD's. That only took 12 years.

>find blog

-get new job
-start cleaning things
-go on computer instead
-find blog

Hey, I've been writing *other* things lately. A lot of creative-type work that I'll probably never publish, but still want to get out. Anyway...

Married - check
Graduated college - check
4 kids - check (yea, FOUR. Three boys and then a girl)
Another new job - check
        (that last one means I have to move, again)


But it means I'm leaving Buffalo. It's been seven years. My wife and I have built a life out here. I graduated 2 years ago, but my own lack of gettingajoborgoingtogradschool meant we stayed put. This is the only life my kids have known. Granted, the oldest is six, but it's still uprooting him.

Admittedly, most of my friends out here have been fellow students, during and after college. Even the ones that didn't get a job still moved out of town. (Either they were going back home, or just getting out of town) Nothing has really been permanent. The news of my imminent departure was met with some sadness and plans to reminisce, and one case of tears.

Trying to display a sense of long-term thinking and planning is difficult when what they're going to miss is both immediate and irreplaceable. The bulk of your relationship with your kids is when they're adults, but her tears were for missing my children's childhood.

There's really nothing I can say that can soften that blow.

I suck at selfies

I can look in a mirror and think I look fine, but as soon as I'm holding a camera my face starts to melt. I think I'll just leave picture taking to others.

Or maybe I should stop making silly faces.

Working at night has its ups and downs, and holidays really bring out the moron in people. I know I went to work last night, but it didn't feel like I was at work. Meh.

I've made one decision about 2015: I'm going to kick its sorry butt.

Well that was nice

OK, so 2013 saw a lot of high hopes, and an almost equal amount of said hopes never leaving the ground. I went into 2014 with a "I just hope it doesn't suck" attitude, and let me tell you...

It works!

I'm taking this whole "graduated and trying to find a place in the world" a bit more slowly, more methodically, and I'm not stressing about it anymore. I realized that I can't change the outcome of 90% of the things I deal with, and my stress levels have gone down accordingly. I also realized that 90% of my stress was coming from just one thing.

My old job.

Sounds bad? It does. The job was more boring than anything. Expectations were low, but I wasn't empowered to really fix anything. "Armed with an apology" is the best way I can sum it up. That and it was a real dead end. The guy that hired me was there for 10 years before he got bumped up to that seat. It was a combination of boredom and fatalism. Sure, my co workers were awesome (If you've managed to find my blog: I miss you guys)

So yea, the one big thing that changed was my employment, and everything around my life adjusted accordingly. Met some new people, made some new friends, and my sons discovered Lego.

...that last one is huge.

Waybackwhen

Dig back about 13 years, and you'll find that I used to live in the middle of Utah. (I know, I know) I was a week away from my 20th birthday, and I had yet to do anything with my life. I wasn't going to college, or even had a job lined up. I was invited by a friend to spend a few days, and discovered the rent was really cheap.

It felt more like running away from home than moving out, but that's another story.

I did a lot of swing dancing. A lot as in the group I found that officially danced every Saturday would also gather several times during the week at other appointed times and do likewise. I make no claim to being good at Lindy Hop, but I enjoyed myself immensely. I also met a lot of people. Made a lot of friends.

I only lived out there for 15 months. The start of one summer to the end of the next. I didn't think I would be back in NY for very long, expecting to return within a few months. Didn't happen. I wasn't expecting to lose touch with, well, almost everyone. It was years later (about 7 or so) that I started to find a few here and there on facebook. Some others, though, not so much.

It's a somewhat melancholy thought, that there are people I may never see again.