John Hattaway

Well, it is true, for those keeping score, yesterday was my birthday and I did turn 35. Incidentally, I had a friend I’ve not been in contact with for about ten years get a hold of me and wish me a happy birthday. Once again, Facebook has brought two people together that had lost track of each other. In this case, this friend had a reminder that went off on his computer once a year and, according to him, he’s been trying to find me every January 6th for the last ten or so years but has been wholly unable to. I guess (for me) that is a little interesting as typing in my name in Google has (pretty consistently since 2004) brought up my website, first sw.c.com and now johnhattaway.com. This, however, does not mean that anyone has to look for me very hard, I mean, I’ve found people and then moved on from finding them to ignoring the fact that I found them and such-like.

Yesterday was a good day. As promised I didn’t update, though, sadly, I did get online. There is a measure of need for me to find a job and to be actively engaged in it and even though I have a job listing that requires me to drive to a location about ten or fifteen miles away (uhm, according to mapquest its 6.27 miles away and takes 16 minutes to drive), yesterday was out because I was celebrating my birthday with wife and child and parents-in-law (and then later that night with brother-in-law). Which reminds me, thanks Lisa and Jim for the cards and Lisa for the cake. You all helped make the day special and harder to skip out on people and away from communication and life, which can be a little nice.

Erin and I went out to eat and get haircuts. The haircuts (universally) sucked as the lady doing the cutting didn’t have a blankety-blank clue as to what she was doing. I specifically asked for a number three on the sides and back of my head, which surprised her, but I know that the number three is pretty universal and when something else is suggested by a talented hair stylist am willing to listen, but this lady was such a spaz that her making any suggestions wasn’t appreciated. Anyway, she pulls out a pair of rechargeable hair clippers and proceeded to cut half of my head before they die. Then she proceeds to cut the same half to her imagined finger length and almost completely (except for the odd clip and snip) forgot the side she didn’t get with clippers. I kept waiting for her to borrow or pull out another pair and when she didn’t and then asked, “How does that look?” I said, “The two sides of my head are two different lengths,” at which point she started telling me about how my hair grows. I looked at her (in the mirror) and said, “I know how my hair grows and I know that the two sides are two different lengths.” We think, based on her reactions and trying to blame the cutting on my head, that she thought she tried to even out both sides of my head by using her scissors and failing miserably. Erin pointed out that when she went back over my head with a pair of borrowed clippers (hers were dead and she tried to get me to pass off on the haircut by telling us that it would take forever to recharge her clippers) that the side she spent forever on let off no hair when she ran the clippers over them and the other side cut a lot of hair. The problem I had, and I actually had to walk out of the salon after she was done, was that she started yanking at the clippers and in turn pulling my hair with them. Not comfortable. The point in all of this is the lady (and if I remembered her name I would probably share it with anyone who lived in the Berkshires in Massachusetts) didn’t really know how to cut hair, messed up my hair (and no, I don’t like it high and tight) and preceded cutting my hair by messing up cutting Erin’s bangs that Erin will let brand new hairstylist graduates cut and be happy with it. Not fun.

After the hair we bought me a toolbox for my tools. Something any “handy” dad needs to have. Followed by a new SIGG water bottle that is more flask shaped and rather cool. We then went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant after finding a place called Pedro’s Wings and Dogs (sounds like hot wings and hot dogs to me) before seeing a Chinese restaurant Erin knew and liked and since I was totally in the mood for Chinese we went in and then ordered everything we wanted. Which, amazingly, was a TON of food that we brought home and her brother told us wouldn’t last the night while her dad said he was going to take some to work today. All-in-all, the night was good and since Erin’s mom wanted to put CAMPER to bed, which also meant giving him a bath and following his routine, we tried to stay out as late as we could, but come 7:30 p.m. we headed back to the house to relieve a grandparent from a screaming baby because, when you take him prematurely out of the bath, he likes to scream his head off as though screaming will get him back in the bath, which is clearly never the case. Of course, this kid, when he gets hungry, decides to pitch a very loud and unending fit that often results in real tears until he has a nice warm bottle in his mouth and is being held very securely by someone. Which really resulted, last night, in Erin’s mom, then Erin and finally me holding and rocking him to sleep.

In between food and home we stopped off at the bookstore and I got a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s, The Jungle Books, since he wrote two Jungle Books, named the first one, Jungle Book, and the second one, The Second Jungle Book, and Barnes and Noble, as the publisher, published them as a single book and called the combined books, The Jungle Books. What I did notice, and notice almost every time I walk into a Barnes and Noble, is their distinct and almost (though not complete) lack of The Modern Library publications of classic books. I would imagine this is because The Modern Library is a direct competitor of Barnes and Noble publishing and as a corporation they’ve decided not to NOT carry the books, but rather to not actively carry them if there is a book they publish that they don’t want competition for. As a result, my choice (in literature) is Barnes and Noble publication, whilst, when I walked over to philosophy, I noted The Modern Library collections and works over there. I would suggest this is odd, or at the very least awkward, but it is neither odd nor awkward and as a result, I am sure if I get a hankering for a nice classic in a The Modern Library edition I should just use Amazon.com or plan to drive to Albany or Holyoke where they have a Borders (as a side note, The Modern Library does not appear to publish a copy of The Jungle Books). I wanted these books, in part, because I recently read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and that it was based, in part, off of The Jungle Books and that Gaiman really had a lot of positive things to say about The Jungle Books and as a result, when I review The Graveyard Book I want to have (possibly) read The Jungle Books. Now let’s see if that actually happens.

Anyway, the night ended as they always do. Since it was my night to pray, I tried to convince Erin that it was really her night to pray and she told me she’d tried to change my phone so it always read that it was her night to pray (it’s not currently accurate), at which time I pointed out that when I check to see whose night it is to pray I check the day before and the day after as well and that little trick wouldn’t last very long. She, however, thought it was a nice little trick and may try again at some future point.

The point in all of this is that I had a good day. I am now officially 35, which in a lot of areas when filling out forms I get to move up to the next age group segment. It also means that if I wanted to, I could run for President of the United States. Imagine that, me president of the United States. Erin’s brother told someone, who naively thought I was shy, that I didn’t speak to him because I probably considered him an idiot (not the exact words). We all got a good laugh at me being shy. But, the point in this is to imagine me being president when even my bro-in-law thinks that I think people are idiots. Its not true, but the world doesn’t necessarily see into my head and since I am stand-offish, means that I am not likely to change what the world sees. Of course, according to Erin I can be very friendly and charming in front of a large group of people (which I think might be true), but the difference between large group and individual contact is something I choose not to go into and I will revert to the statement that if I wanted to and was interested in political office, I am now constitutionally able to run for president. Amazingly enough, I now match all of the ACTUAL requirements to be president, I was born in and by extension am a citizen of the United States and I am 35. Chew on that McCain. Heck, the courts actually did have to look at his birth and the conditions under which he was born in Panama to determine if he was actually eligible. Me, I am actually eligible. Yay!

As for how I feel, well… that’s a question. I feel about the same as I did a couple of days ago when I was 34. Not really a lot different though I did spend the preceding week thinking about all of those things I wanted to have accomplished by the time I was 25 and didn’t and how at 35 I am a lot closer to having many of those early life’s goals out of the way (married, family, degree). At the same time, I look back on a lot of years of semi-wasted time and wonder if I would do things differently. Honestly, folks, a lot of that time was simply spent writing and you have to write to get better at writing and since I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to the study of the process and act and art of writing, I don’t think they are wasted years, just not focused in ways that would set me  up at this point in my life.

Regardless, as of today I am still looking for a job, I did get a recruiter email today for a job closer to Boston. I responded with my resume and don’t know whether or not I will hear anything back. I am qualified and do have the experience, the problem I’ve got is not experience or qualifications it’s location. At the same time, I am hoping (and I am beginning to think this hope is false) that the local company I’ve been waiting on will eventually come through and as a result of the lack of movement in that realm I am most likely in need of reverting to Plan B. What is Plan B? Well, I can’t tell you.

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This entry was posted by smokingpen on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Personal Entries, family, observations, on age. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.