Ten pieces of flash fiction
- It snowed today.
- It was for a couple minutes, max: I looked at the window and it was a regular Seattle window, overcast, a couple folks in Patagonias walking by unamused, and then turned back a moment later and suddenly there was everything coming down, blurry enough that I couldn’t tell if maybe it was sleet or snow or rain or something a little less magical.
- It snowed on a Sunday night last February, too. It was during the Super Bowl (a harsher Super Bowl) then, and we left early because it was obvious the Falcons were going to win and we wanted to beat the traffic, and then of course you get surprised in the worst way.
- That was a year away: a long year away. Things feel different, in the sense that time tends to arbitrarily pull and snap like rubber in these wayward years. I would never have guessed at the gap between twelve months: a different apartment, a different world, a slightly different haircut.
- My friend M sent me this piece about the tyranny of the convenience, and how the objective benefits of modern affordances detract from the gestalt of our existence.
- I read it in an Uber. The two people in the back seat were complaining about the slow service at Portage Bay Café.
- I spent the entire weekend without working on consulting or any side projects. This is, for me, an accomplishment. (Okay, I had a couple meetings, but that barely counts.)
- I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to be five years from now, which leads me to thinking where I wanted to be now, five years ago. Five years ago I was 20; I was in the waning years of the college glow. I had a job lined up without a real understanding of what that entailed — if I was alive and healthy and had a good scotch collection, I think I would have considered 25 a success.
- I’ve been out of school for a full four years (and then same) — the postgraduate part of my time as an adult is officially over. Do people know what they want to do with their careers? I think some people do, and some people don’t. Is indecision about these things a sign of immaturity, or a sign of privilege?
- I spent eight hours today drinking Rainiers and eating brisket with a great group of people. I never felt the urge to check my email. I just checked it, right now, as I was writing this email, and I’ve got a meeting tomorrow morning.
Happy Sunday.
I hope you spend a weekend away from screens.