So, Vox is shutting down. Turns out I only have one entry there that I really care about, dated August 31, 2006. Before it evaporates, I'll just give an indiscriminate copy-and-paste-powered blast from the past here:

Moving out here has been so simultaneously extraordinary and mundane.  Settling into the new apartment and daily routines has been same as anywhere - only there are unexpected hills on the horizon and the names of half of everything have changed.  We haven't had the chance to get out socially much yet, so all the acquaintances I've made online remain as relatively equidistant as they were 3 months ago.  But, I keep reminding myself that so many of my blogospheric contacts are real-world neighbors now.

I got happily married, changed jobs, and effectively changed countries with a move from the midwest to the west coast.  It's a lot to process, and my mind's trying to grasp at the familiar and map everything else exotic onto a predictable metaphor.  My mind resists further change, it feels like.  I'm going to have to watch myself for signs of hermitage and social avoidance, though, hoping that the momentum of this world shift can carry me past old habits.  This is an opportunity for self-revision while the situation remains elastic, and I'm hoping to make a few long-needed alterations.

I'm trying to keep cool, but on some days I just want to spaz out like the starry-eyed new-kid-on-the-block that, in part, I am.  I mean, consider the extraordinary:  In June, I was married in Michigan to the girl of my dreams, and tonight I'm sleeping in the Silicon Valley toward which I've gazed nearly since birth.  But, remember the mundane:  I'm riding the bus to work, hacking code daily and helping douse occasional server fires.

But of course, even the bus commute is a bit out-of-bounds for my post-Detroit car-bound normality and the work I'm doing rests within a surreal frame.  I mean, my job is to work on the thing about which I just spent a period of months in my basement writing a book.

Bah, you see my oscillations here?  Maybe if you grab me by the shoulders, I'll make that clicking sound fans make when you hold them in place.