I came out here in the summer of 2006 after several years of madness under the shadow of the GM center. I had a good job lined up and dear family here, but the real reason for the jump was to pop the bubble of my comfort zone. To reduce my socialization and focus. To break my strongest connections so that when I wanted to again in the future, I could break more without remorse. It took me a year to recover from this severance. And I can't apologize enough, but you understand what I did.
And though I started making a lot of money and securing an envious resume that peers might use to leverage marriage, homes, etc, I moved into a 10' x 10' cell with screaming red walls and sat on the floor to work. Crafted a workspace from materials I found cheap. Enrolled in university and stayed up late perfecting the craft. And despite the boredom, the loneliness, this city's lack of soul, the tedium of a technical profession, the constant longing for people who are not here . . .I learned to write.
Started sweating and losing sleep over a second undergraduate degree. Where people examined me like a foreign object; knowledge of math verging on witchcraft and opinions, rigorous and logical, that were better off left alone. Learned the ins and outs of this wing of academia and understood where I wanted to be in a few years.
And time passed. And I met people. And I went places, and I returned home, and I drank and smoked too much, and I fell in love, and I sharpened my body like a spear, and I visited strange lands, and I developed new reputations and habits and vices, and I relentlessly shaved my head, and I read 50 books, and I wrote a dozen stories. And suddenly its 2008 and I'm looking at the short end of my time in Boise. I quit my job 16 months from now. And I have no idea where I will be a few months after that. And this mystery makes the brevity of the time ahead exhilarating.
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