I-I-I, I feel so alive, no time to breathe, no time to stop, but damn I don't want it to ever even slow down...
No time to frown, no time to scream, just enough time to think, pause to dream, and then off again...
Raced out of work after the fifth interview in a row of Coop students (what I essentially was not three months ago), in close contact with Craig Brown - another uberhuman dot on the horizon that's somehow managed with a handful of words to springboard me along the highway of synchronicity.
Now I'm asking *him* for students.
I interviewed, with Peter's help, five of them yesterday.
It just occurred to me that the one we're actually hiring for an internship in September (I was a student seconds ago and now I'm their boss?!?) is the only one that *didn't* walk into the interview with "So YOU're the famous Coop student..."
I really hope I didn't hold something that ridiculous against them, but Stuart (#4 of 5) definitely came off as a "I'll say anything to get me ahead" kinda fellow. Neither of us were going for it, but he's definitely a clever and qualified young man.
I doubt he'll have any trouble finding another stage.
ANYWAY.
Raced off from there, head reeling, blood screaming in what seemed loud enough to be everyone's ears, to meet Marc.
We were supposed to sign up for motorcycle lessons, maybe go out for dinner, and check out the jazz fest.
The school we checked out, that sounded all hip-and-happennin' on the phone would have been comparable to a rat's nest if, say, you spent several thousand dollars on cleaning, renovations, and general de-lousing.
(Beginning with the owner-guy who looked like he'd been hit by a particularly boisterous brick wall when we barged in after having gotten lost in the pale excuse for a building)
Imagine, uber-clever-always-stresssed-as-it-is-too-smart-for-his-own-good Marc, and wired-on-nothing-but-coffee and starved-for-information-I've-just-been-grilling-people-for-the-last-four-hours, me - and some guy who's average thought processes reminded me of trying to chat on a dual-line BBS when the fastest thing available was 1200baud modems.
Amazing how instinctual your responses and lines of questioning get after four hours of wheedling nervous people for pertinent information. Fifteen minutes and we'd sucked this guy's brains dry.
Poor guy didn't have much to offer us, tho.
We walked away, unsigned.
Turns out the rest of our plans were up in the air, too, and the moment of quaint awkwardness as Marc grabbed me by the arm and said "We don't need those guys, we have way more fun just on our own" was enough to keep my heart palpitating through the last 20-odd hours.
I had no idea, (okay, I did) how much I've been wanting to hear him say that. I had no idea it would mean so much more than the casual comment it was meant as.
Now, we're both "just one of the boys" to each other, but I don't care. It's still a glass-slipper situation only the shoe's a steel-shod fuck-me-red boot with titanium laces, but it fits like only a dream possibly could.
So we called cf, called Russel, grabbed a brew at McKibbin's and sat there engrossed in each other until the buds arrived.
I keep realizing how little I know about my most valued friends. Maybe that's why they're my most valued friends... The thought had occurred but my vain naivete bit down on it, hard.
Marc and I talked about the skinhead days.
Both of us gasping and agape at each other.
Awright, his rude-boy friends were half a step away from mine... And he looked at me with those big, beautiful eyes all glaring wide at the mention of death, because he'd never experienced anyone close to him dying...
But we've both had our run-ins with the law.
And I got to tell him a little bit about mine. That meant the world to me, even though I barely made it past any stories at all (just about friends who bought it in juvie hall) before I had to ask him if I could talk about it some other time.
I got to tell someone... Someone who's known me on and off for six years, a little bit about the past I've been so fucking accustomed to hiding.
We talked work (Hey Steven, remember that expert systems project? It might help him with work... I just wished he wasn't so hellbent on offering me money for it.), and friends and geek dreams...
we ate and drank and laughed with cf and Russel, we planned and plotted our futures, and skipped entirely out on the jazz fest and rented the most incredible movie.
"Plunkett & McLean" (not sure how to spell the latter) - a tale of gentleman highwaymen, but so artfully woven and painted that I couldn't tell how much I was dreaming into the costumes and incredibly rich scenery, let alone the kind of love story *I* can go in for.
And today was beyond comprehension.
We've been in meetings since I got here this morning, with me racing out for a minute here and there to take care of internship-related issues, and we've been discussing a standard for mapping a certain type of data flow to smartcards.
We argued about bags and lists and DOMs and all sorts of things that were foreign to me seemingly half-seconds ago, and this morning, after listening to Fabrice and Patrice lower their voices at each other until they were near to growls...
That moment of "EUREKA!" hit.
It took me another ten minutes to get it out within the human range of hearing.
Philippe looked at me, and just said "exactly."
So we're going with my idea. Me. Stupid, young, "You're 23?!?!" (marc said that yesterday, among other people), inexperienced and definitely un-knowledgeable in all things ANYTHING related, is not only hiring a student on my own initiative, but...
The new open-sourced standards for that thing we're working on - is getting implemented on a moment's epiphany.
It's all I can do not to cry.
I'm going out for brew tonight, looking ahead at a crazed weekend (hopefully I'll have time to skip some laundry and Marc'll call like he said he would - he sounded so excited about hanging out more, I'm reluctant to believe it) of preparing for new york next week and a million other things like trying to see how much inspiration I can steal from early BSD-filesystem implementations (cuz right now they keep comparing the new DF-EF system to FATs and that drives me batty) and everything else.
Oh, I just can't stop, is all.
And neither do I want to.
Somebody pinch me, I'll never stop dreaming.