-v

Funny how writing every day makes me write more than once a day on most days. There have been times when I've held back from posting three times, for fear of overwhelming you with this assorted tripe and nonsense.

I'm enjoying work in the not-so-new-any-more office, it is very nice to sit at street level and see people walking past. We have had a few visitors drop in, too, which never happened in the old office (which was on an unfrequented street, in the third floor, behind a garden gate and a long flight of steps). I am getting to know the neighbours to wave and nod at, sorting out their relationships and habits; and they know us too: half a dozen people—near strangers—came out to greet U when she brought Ralph to the office for the first time on the weekend.

I have been looking out that enormous street-front window, watching yellow leaves fall in the wind, watching as the light changes and day fades to night.

Being here feels very pleasantly small-town-ish. I wish to continue to work in this way, in such a place.

A realization: I am happiest when working in earnest on serious matters. Idling about does not suit me, much as I love riding Greyhound buses and visiting art galleries and sitting at outdoor cafés. It's the contrast that makes these things enjoyable, as a regular lifestyle they would drive me to despair within a week. At least part of my unhappiness this summer came from not having such work to do. The database doesn't count: there is no deadline, no pressure from clients, no external realities to conform to.

And that's all I have to say about that.

The title is a relic of my Unix hacker days: many command-line tools normally report on their actions in a terse just-the-facts-Ma'am manner, optionally offering a fulsome and more conversational style. The convention is to call this option "verbose" and flag it with "-v".