The Confessions of Ira Short

These days have taken on a surreal aspect. The outlines are familiar, but the edges are blurring, changing; details melting into the background. I'm standing outside of it, looking at a strange, yet familiar landscape. I've been here before. A half-dozen times when the world was cut out from under me, when everything that had been, no longer was. Updated: March 20, 2021 I started this post a year ago today. Wrote it, and never posted it. I looked at it, read it, re-wrote it, re-read it. I had a hundred reasons for not finishing it, for not posting it. In large part, it was because I was lucky enough to have been one of the fortunate ones. I haven't lost my job. On March 20, 2020, I was on my way back home from the office with my computer hardware in the front seat of the Miata, taking it home so I could set up my "office" in one of the spare bedrooms, where I have continued to work for the last year. I didn't post this because, after all, what di...

The large front window of the house faces east, with the result that every morning I am privy to one of a seemingly limitless number of sunrises. Most of the time, that is simply a matter of the sun popping up over the horizon, without fanfare, and so my day begins. Other times, when I pull the curtains back, there is something more waiting for me. The work I do (aka, my "day job") is writing computer software. It is all very logical, methodical, and relatively predictable. Even when I am troubleshooting a problem, there is really not any creativity involved. There is a set number of variables to be traced; it's a problem in logic. It's all very cut and dried. If I look at the sunrise from that perspective, it is not in the least bit remarkable. A meteorologist could tell me the exact list of conditions that have caused the clouds to form on this morning. I don't know the exact terminology, but I do know it has to do with the relative humidity, the air tempe...