27.05.04 fearful symmetry
On the very day I left my job at the Big Corporation, Gord, one of my best friends who is frequently mistaken for my brother, joined it.
Today he writes me:
I have now completely gone over to the dark side!
I am presently sitting in a 100% cube shaped cubicle on the 11th floor of a glass tower that is surrounded by other glass towers. I am wearing a tailored white shirt with an appropriately conservative silk tie. I now shave every day, vs. only when I have to meet clients. I am working in a high-tech firm, yet instead of being surrounded by hippy-nerds talking about B5 hair clip ships, why Glamdring didn’t glow, or why Nathalie Portman should only wear leather, I am surrounded by other cubites who don’t talk at all!
Yet, tonight I play D&D (Elven Bard with a sentient blade), this weekend I practice the ancient art of the sword of Kuen Wu Mountain, & next June I go to a seminar to work on development of Tsan Si Jing (Silk Reeling Energy)!
I feel like ‘Mr. Anderson’.
To which I reply:
“Despair not, Darth Gordius, for… there is another.
Just as you succumbed to the dark side, your secret twin sister escaped its clutches and joined the rebels.
Gone are the power suits; I’ve been wearing denim, anime hair (or Leia buns) and my Emily shirt with the pink skull buttons. Why, just yesterday we had a meeting in which we decided NOT to have the character’s limbs get cut off, but instead, to have blood and guts spray to cover the camera lens… because it’s Nicer That Way. I took a paycut, but I’m surrounded with figurines, posters, and the neatest toys.
There is A New Hope.”
In other words, I’m really happy!