My father died some weeks ago, at the age of 59. It was not unexpected, as he had been suffering from illness for a long time.

Even though I had had time to mentally prepare myself, it was nevertheless a setback. Luckily I had taken the time to visit him several times over the last few difficult months.

When I was a kid, he was never really a good father. Alcohol combined with a bad temper made for some traumatic experiences. He changed, though – stopped drinking, and became quite a nice fellow. We got along well, but were always somewhat distant. My father had been told by his doctors that he could receive organ transplants from a live donor, but he had declined this – and not told anybody in the family about the possibility. When I heard about his illness, I looked it up, and found out about this possibility. I was later told that my offer to be that donor was what gave my father the will to even attempt to fight death, and to be put on a waiting list.

I never got the chance to donate, and he never received his transplants at all. In the end, massive organ failure killed him. I like to think that I gave him a chance, and that he realized that he actually meant something to his family when even an estranged son made such an offer.

One Friday evening I spent four hours alone with him in his hospital room. It was my first visit there. He looked like a half-dead mummy, scary, and it quite shook me for a moment. At first our conversation was awkward, hampered by his obvious discomfort and pain. He had tears in his eyes at one time, and I heard the fear in his voice. Fear of death, fear of being seen in this weak condition. Fear of his own past catching up with him. Then he relaxed, and we got to talk about this and that – my new job, the new city I moved to, which he knew since it was his home city – and then I began to tell him all those weird and funny stories about my life I never got to tell him. I told him about Yunru and Saku and Bahati and Mariah and the others – including, even, some stories I haven’t shared with anybody else. Some stories produced a “That reminds me” from him, although I had to carry the conversation due to his weakness. When I left, I was compeltely drained – I had not realized just what a strain the conversation had put on me. There is something elementary disconcerting about seeing one’s father in such a state.

The funeral was fairly hard on all of us, during the ceremony. I’ve been to family funerals before, but only to those of old people. Grandparents, for example – people who were always old for as long as I knew them. People who died at old ages; 85, 90, 92, 87, and so on. It’s okay to die at 90. It’s not okay to die before retirement age. It was even worse than the funeral of one of my best friends, many years ago, who died the age of 35. Still, one gets over such things – my family and I are cut from the same wood, in this regard: We’ll accept a situation and make the best of it. We won’t let misfortune destroy us. There’s a lot of things I’d have liked to do with my father, especially now that I moved to a city so much closer, a city he knew so well; but it can’t be helped. He will be missed, and not forgotten, and I guess that is what counts when you die – that there’s someone left who cares. It shows that you were, at your very core, a good person.

So I’ve had (almost) a week in my new job. It’s been an eventful one.

• A (female) intern started on the same day as I did. She’s simply adorable. Pretty, cute, witty, cheerful, and (unfortunately) totally my type as well. She’s also about 12 years younger than I. If that were not enough, I think my manager may be into her, no pun intended.
• Missed my own introduction at the first Friday’s company meeting due to the fact I had not been told about the meeting – and thus scheduled to look at apartments.
• One of my co-workers is jealous because I have to work a lot with his life-partner. Never mind that I am totally absolutely not into guys! It seems the two guys had problems in their relationship before. Now the other dude is talking very badly about me behind my back. Great!

Could you think of a better start into a new job?

I started my new job today. So far, so good. I don’t really have anything interesting to say about it, yet… except that this office must have the highest concentration of weirdos and oddballs I have seen in a long time. I know that a renaissance for this blog is gonna come from these guys…

Take the Magic: The Gathering ‘What Color Are You?’ Quiz.

As you probably saw on my twitter feed, I’ve been offered a new job. I decided to take it. I resigned last week. My bosses reaction was predictable.

“Oh, okay,” he said. He barely looked at my resignation before returning to whatever he was reading.

On my way back to my desk I dropped by Lynn’s office and gave her the news.

“Ooookay,” she replied.

“I seem to get that a lot today.”

“So where will you be working?”

I told her about the new job, and that it is in another city. She was fairly cheerful, but after I left her office again I noticed that she hadn’t resorted to her usual zany jokes.

Oh, well… Another one for the long list I guess.

As you may know I’m currently job hunting. Not something I enjoy under normal circumstances; but in days of global economic meltdown, it’s even more sucky than normally. There’s a lot of really good people available who got laid off, and a lot of companies who’re simply not hiring. Add to it my desire to find a job that’s actually fun and puts me in the same room as fun people, and it begins to look hopeless.

Had a lot of interviews lately, but can’t seem to nail anything down. The little feedback I get seems to indicate it’s not really anything wrong with me, it’s just that there are more suitable candidates. The curse of the generalist is that there’s always a specialist for everything…

Too bad I can’t list “free headlining on a crummy anonymous geek blog” as a plus.

One of my female friends who shall remain nameless is pregnant. I never realized quite what a freak she is:

“We made a lot of tapes,” she told me. “so we probably have That One as well. Think we’ll keep them.”

Me: “So one day your kid is gonna go through your stuff and watch his own conception? You should probably think about that.”

If you hear that story in a court case twenty years down the road after some kid born in ‘09 becomes a psychopath… don’t say I didn’t warn anybody.

Bad day today, and not really because of anything specific. I am feeling old, cranky, and did I mention I am feeling old? It’s been one of those moody days where you get up on the wrong foot, then something reminds you of something you had already almost forgotten, and then you spend the whole day with your mind solidly focused in the past. 1995-past. 1998-past. Even 2002-past and 2007-past. And then your thoughts return to the present and you realize, bloody hell, not only has life not improved, it’s gotten worse. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, I realized that I am now at an age where I really have to worry about my timetable. Kind of like women who suddenly realize they’re 30 and still haven’t reproduced. Yeah, I am now over 30, just that as a guy I care less about having a little version of myself, and instead worry about quality of life in general. I’ve been stuck in the same type of life for the past 10 years, doing the same thing, having about the same standard of living, and so on, and so on.

I really, really do not want to be stuck in the same miserable excuse for a life when I hit the big four-oh.

Sure, I’ve had some good times, but today I seem to be seeing the downsides: I’ve dated some smart and sexy women – but none of those relationships worked out. I’ve traveled four continents – but what good did that really do me? Now I am still stuck in my home-country. I live comfortably – but I still live from one month’s salary to the next, my saving being negligible in the grand scheme of things. Ten years job exprience, and none of it is truly noteworthy (I am good at what I do… but so are a million other people. Ask me about looking for a new job in the midst of a global financial melt-down someday). And sure, I’ve accomplished some things, but – no, wait, that’s the core of the issue, I haven’t.

So, yeah. I am feeling really down today and there’s not even really anything I can do about it. In the long term, maybe – I’ll have to think long and hard about it. But there’s nothing I can do right now. I am sure as hell not going to rush out and buy a sports car, no matter how traditional that “solution” is.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Martha is an elderly co-worker. She has this problem where spots of the skin on her hands have lost their pigmentation. I overheard the following conversation she had with a younger co-worker, Denise.

Martha: “Now that it’s so sunny, this is really annoying, because the specks get sunburned so easily.”

Denise: “Oh don’t worry about it – a lot of people walk around with cancer, nobody will think it’s a big deal.”