As I sat on the phone listening to someone describe what they had tried to select the VCR on the TV, I got thinking, “really, how hard is it to follow wires from one box to another box?” But then, I’m good at troubleshooting systems. I know how to break something down into parts and isolate which parts matter, and which don’t to quickly judge the amount of attention to give to each at different points in the troubleshooting process. Input devices, output devices, switches, connecting cables, I identify the roles that devices in an entertainment system play without consciously thinking about it in a split second, like the scenes in movies where spy type roles brag about identifying exits, weapons and people upon walking into a restaurant.

Then I got think about something J said about how my intensity in relationships, and how I really try when many others don’t, as well as her recent comment that if M had any interest in a relationship with me at the time, it would have been a priority and she would have made time. Ultimately, she simply did not care. Which is fine, and important to hold close to me. Because so many people care so little about so much, and so much about so little.

And so, at 10pm at night, where I haven’t been home for 36+ hours, I’m trying to build aggregate graphs out of data points that I deem relational in the multiple clusters worldwide that host my product from which to make capacity planning decisions. Why? Why would I do anything else? I’m unable to convince myself to leave.