The Moon is Down

That's the song playing out of my iPod right now, courtesy of a lovely little band called Explosions in the Sky. I find myself enjoying singer-less bands these days. Explosions, Pelican, Small Sails... It's not really a "Now that I'm older and more mature, I only listen to Bach" thing. On the contrary, the stuff I've been listening to still has what all good pop/rock songs do -- hooks. You've gotta have those hooks. It's just that they come without the white noise of voice, and with a little more tension, a little more buildup.

I guess I should share a bit, as Nancy has asked, about my new job. (Briefly: if you listen to "The Moon is Down" by Explosions, the buildup breaks into a lush valley at 5:47). This is a very fair request, and I can't seem to find any good reasons to avoid it, although I thought Nicole's/Shawn's explanations -- "...when you ask Shawn, 'so what does Aaron do at his new job?" he says "He goes to meetings and meets people.'" -- pretty much covered it. No, no that's not true. I do have the privilege of meeting many people. I do go to many meetings and sit, listen, absorb. I also complete actual work. (In fact, this is really the pressing issue thus far: I have quite a bit of work to do, but getting it done in between meetings/lunches/etc. can prove difficult.) Oh, right, I sort of forgot to mention my employer -- the City of Phoenix. Really, I just feel lucky to be there at all. They're in the midst of a hiring freeze (sidenote: As are many governments these days. You see, when the economy sucks, and your local government -- in response to citizen demand -- relies more on sales taxes than property taxes, they run out of money, since sales taxes are are more volatile. That means people stop buying stuff, so the city has no money.) Unless you're a cop, you're pretty much not getting a job these days (with the exception of a very few, "mission critical" positions -- like when there's no one to drive the garbage trucks. You can get in that way too.) My little program has been around long enough, and has enough of a track record, that the City seems committed to finding a way to continue it, once again much to my benefit.

There are also some sweet perks, aside from a regular, above-the-poverty-line paycheck. Because the program has been going for so long (1950), there are still a ton of former interns in the City government. As part of the acclimation process, each previous year's intern class, or what remains of them, take the current interns out to lunch. The longevity of the program again pays dividends here, as it basically means that there's probably 15 - 20 free lunches we get from past interns. Hey, you gotta take care of the family, right? We also get to take tours of most any city facility, system, etc. we like. Please, allow me to flash the inner-nerd here. The city, for example, cools all of its downtown facilities through a pretty clever system in which water is frozen to ice during the night, then slowly melted during the day while fans blow the air -- cooled by the ice -- into the facilities. Nerdy? Yes. Do I want to tour it? Yes. Will we get to? Almost surely.

Really, I guess what has been at the forefront of my mind ever since beginning the job is that there are just so many opportunities, so much access, being granted me that, had I come into this (or any) organization as a normal employee, I never would've had. This is a gift, most assuredly. And, perhaps best of all, it has brought me back home. Back to PHX, back to real summers, back to storms clouds. Not a morning goes by, it seems, where I don't find myself thinking, generally during the morning commute, how "mine" this place is. I've said it before, and it still holds true. It's good to be home.