I’m in San Francisco for the week following Macworld Expo while my wife attends a business event thrown by her company. It didn’t make sense for me to fly back to Seattle when she was coming down here, so we hooked up and now I’m the Hotel Husband while she goes off to work.
Nonetheless, this week has enabled me to spend a lot of time alone; she’s been going to various meetings, presentations, and dinners the entire week. Sure, it’s a similar situation when I’m in Seattle and she’s away on business, but being in a different city enhances that sense of being alone. It’s kinda nice – taken out of my usual haunts, away from my friends, what will I spend my time doing?
It should come as no surprise that I’ve spent a lot of the time this week on the computer; I’m not on vacation, after all, and the week after Macworld is always busy while I catch up and get organized for the new year. In that sense, this year is no exception: I’m now updating my iMovie VQS to account for iMovie 4 (announced at the expo), and will be adding iDVD 4 to the mix because the two programs complement each other so well. I’m writing two reviews for Macworld Magazine due by the end of January. I’m working on a Take Control ebook, tossing around ideas for another, and will possibly be editing a third. I’m working on a PDF update to my Palm Organizers VQS, which covers changes in the Palm OS that appeared in the latest Palm devices (and which I didn’t have time to put into the printed book). I’m putting together some Web images for a company in Seattle. And I’m the Managing Editor of TidBITS, which is a part-time job every week with its own responsibilities. So, quite a bit of my time has been spent fielding emails, getting caught up with project statuses, and otherwise trying to get organized so I can get it all done.
But that’s all work stuff. For my “personal” time (which is fluid, depending on the work stuff), I’ve managed to venture out of my hotel room and poke around a little. I walked up to Union Square in search of a bookstore (amazingly, the closest bookstore to the Marriott on Fourth is a Borders several blocks away), even though I have four or five books at home that I need to read (but they’re not here, are they?). I visited the Macworld Magazine offices (also walking distance) and had lunch with one of my editors there; yeah, it’s work stuff, too, but not entirely. And tonight, the last night before jetting back to Seattle, I just visited MOMA and let my visual cortex absorb a plethora of modern art. Now, I’m checking my email and having coffee at a nearby Starbucks before heading to the Metreon to cap the evening off with a quasi-trashy Sci-Fi viewing of Paycheck.
Before this turns into a langorous listing of my activities, I should amble to the point: I can’t help but think about Lost in Translation, Soffia Coppola’s well-received film about an aging Hollywood star adrift in Japan. I enjoyed the movie (much more than her previous effort, the Virgin Suicides), but hanging out in a hotel for a week helps me appreciate just how well she tapped into the slightly out-of-now feeling of being alone in an unfamiliar place.
And lest you think I’m despondent and about to slit my wrists or something, I’m enjoying this aloneliness. It’s a nice change, and I recommend it to everyone who feels like they move too quickly most of the time.
Jeff Carlson | Never Enough Coffee Creations 