Plan notwithstanding, here’s how it usually went.<\/p>\n
Invariably, I’d listen intently, then invariably, I’d run to where he told me to go to find it, then invariably, I couldn’t find it then, invariably, I’d run back to him, telling him it wasn’t there.<\/p>\n
Repeat.<\/p>\n
Repeat.<\/p>\n
Repeat.<\/p>\n
Then he’d have the Italian version of a bat-shit-crazy fit, then he’d take me to the very place I’d just two or three times gone to on my own, and right the fuck there it would be.<\/p>\n
Then he’d say “you can’t see for looking.”<\/p>\n
He’s been dead since 1993 and I still can’t see for looking.<\/p>\n On Saturday morning, I woke up on fire, in a very very good way. It felt like the whole world was brand new and all mine. \u00a0I made my usual 6 shots of espresso, dumped them over ice and launched my day.<\/p>\n I had planned some\u00a0super challenging\u00a0creative work for myself and whenever I do that, I like to perform this silly little ritual that helps me feel like I’ve got a clean slate, a fresh start, nothing held over – I power down all my computers the night before, giving them – and symbolically me – a clean\u00a0break by letting my little vintage single wide junkyard jewelbox unwind until we’re completely,\u00a0electronically detached, until we reach complete pixel tranquility, until we come to a full stop. \u00a0I love when we do that.<\/p>\n So my first task on Saturday morning was to fire everything back up and when I did, for some reason, on launch, my fastest, main Mac\u00a0didn’t recognize my trackpad.<\/p>\n Never fear, I restarted. \u00a0But still no trackpad.<\/p>\n I troubleshot my bluetooth settings and was able to successfully recognize the track pad, just not complete the connection to it.<\/p>\n I tested and replaced the batteries in the trackpad.<\/p>\n And then I restarted the computer again.<\/p>\n And then I changed my approach.<\/p>\n I have a trackball – remember those? – that I keep for just these types of situations and, praise the Gods, I’d used the trackball just last week, mere days ago. \u00a0All I had to do to begin\u00a0was find the\u00a0trackball.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Find the trackball.<\/p>\n Find the trackball.<\/p>\n FIND THE TRACKBALL.<\/p>\n But I couldn’t find the trackball.<\/p>\n I couldn’t find the trackball in any of the logical places where I keep things like that – tech and gadget storage boxes\u00a0– \u00a0so I performed a military style “hard target search” (which is also a sort of the same house cleaning strategy used by the big national house cleaning\/maid services) where I started up high at one end of the office\u00a0and worked my way around, then moved down a swath and circled back around.<\/p>\n Over and over and over again until I was on the fucking floor like an infant just figuring out how to crawl, kneeling and reaching in and behind everything and I was down there so long, and on CONCRETE, that I aggravated my patellar tendonitis – thank you, fireworks behind my knee cap – and about 90 minutes in, I just gave up, sat at my desk, went through the start up process one more time, and when the computer launched perfectly – as it always does – I went through the bluetooth discovery process one more time, and this time I held down the “find me, you motherfucker” button on the trackpad extra hard and extra long, and this time, you motherfucker, it worked.<\/p>\n I didn’t need the trackball after all.<\/p>\n My day was still perfect, I roared through all manner of creative endeavor and I was super super happy even though I still had no idea where my trackball was.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Today, sitting at the very same desk, working in the very same set up, I look at my keyboard for what must be the bazillionth time, and what do I see?<\/p>\n The trackball.<\/p>\n Where is it?<\/p>\n Right in front of me.<\/p>\n Why couldn’t I find it Saturday?<\/p>\n Because I can’t see for looking.<\/p>\n Still.<\/p>\n PS I miss my Dad.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you heard that old-fashioned saying before? My Dad used to use it both as a motivator and as a reminder, and I heard it a lot when I’d work side by side with him as his tool runner. He’d be building or fixing something, tearing something apart, or climbing something\u00a0and he’d realize\u00a0he needed a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-me","category-on-my-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Can't](\"http:\/\/rebeccaleone.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170116_171527-1024x576.jpg\")