Infinite Quack

Some are born leaders, some work hard to become leaders, and some have leadership thrust upon them. I don't see myself as a natural leader, at all. I'm most comfortable as an individual contributor. But sometimes I find myself in a position where leadership is called for, and nobody else fits the bill. Sometimes I must step up to ensure things don't fall apart. This happened to me today, but not in a work context. It happened here at home. Not many people know this about my home situation, but it's non-traditional. I share a house with nine other people: my domestic partner / long-time girlfriend, her disabled son, her mother (a retired medical worker), my girlfriend's sister, the sister's two young children, a friend of my girlfriend along with her spouse, and a friend of the sister. Four of these people receive disability income, and a couple of others deserve to (and one is working on getting approved). A number of these people ended up here because they had ...

I feel halved. Maybe more so. I would frequently refer to Susan as my better half, so that suggests I've lost more than that. It's also my timeline that has been sliced in two. I went for a walk by myself today, and couldn't remember doing that for a while. I realized this is going to color all my experiences from now on -- doing things I've done before, but now I'm doing them as a widower. I had experiences before I met Susan, and some of those were nice, but the best ones happened during my time with her. Now that time is over. I'm 47, so my timeline hasn't been cut exactly in half either. I've most likely got less than half my life ahead of me. Just now, it's hard to imagine it being the better half, but I can hope it'll get better than this. It's like how 9/11 changed America, dividing everything into what happened before or after. It's different, though, because this event is not shared. As I walked around the neighborhood, I heard p...

What does one say about a partner of 22 years? When I met Susan -- online initially -- I was only 24 myself, living in an apartment in Ohio. We met on a website, when she responded to a personal ad I had posted. As with much else in our time together, it was Susan who made things happen. She had decided she liked me, and within weeks of our initial email exchange, she had convinced me to fly out to the Seattle area, to stay with her at her house for a week. I have always been a naturally cautious person. I tend not to take risks. But after our happy first meeting, she pressed me to move in with her. The sooner, the better. In March of 1998, I packed up my more important belongings into my small car, mailed some others, sold a few items, and left the rest behind in my apartment. I drove from Ohio to Washington State, with a stop off in Colorado to visit my parents. Susan had a head start on me in life, an 18 year head start. I had only worked one job, for minimal pay, and had yet to lan...

Microsoft, Amazon Advise Staff to Work From Home as Coronavirus Spreads, Facebook Contractor Confirmed Infected Though COVID-19 is ultimately going to affect everybody, this particular outbreak, the first significant one in the US, has had a particular impact on me -- though I'm not aware of anyone I know having caught it. A few years ago my wife and I took a vacation in Hawaii (on the Big Island) with family. We discovered her breathing was easier. We took a second trip to test it, and confirmed that she felt better on the island, worse again in the Seattle area ("east side", to locals). So we set out to make it permanent. We bought a house on the island a couple years ago, got our Seattle-area house sold last year. But I had to maintain a presence in Seattle for the sake of my employer Amazon, who were cautious about granting me broad approval to work remotely. I was permitted to do that for one week per month at first, then two. I got an apartment in downtown Seattle a...