When you walk into Slide’s office, the first thing that may strike you as odd is the lack of superfluous, redundant furnishings. Like walls.

The second thing that may strike you could be our innovative approach to hierarchical and well-defined decision making process (you may see us flailing around and yelling at each other in one of the meeting rooms). The third thing that will strike you (and probably knock you over) is either Uma or Darwin, our two huge in-house dogs, who are on the company payroll and spend all their spare time running between our desks and knocking expensive networking appliances over.

We may have to fire them. Their productivity has shot to hell since they got those new chewing toys…

The rhythm of work is, to say the least, breakneck. We’ve set ourselves on weekly releases and are updating our website and client with lots of new features every day. Although I’ve learned the hard way that our comfy couch, sleeping bags and shower are not there for show, I must say it’s been years since I’ve been so excited about working on something. Each week, I cannot wait for the new features to go live, and see what our users have to say, or the new ways they find to use the site (rudimentary borderline porn publishing and lovely lopsided photosets being amongst my favorites).

That’s not to say I haven’t been having fun outside work. Perhaps you heard about naked shrink-wrapped cellophane girl? Maybe you saw Laughing Squid’s gorgeous photoset of the party in which this happened? I was there. Mostly (I lost track of time and space at some point during the night). I spent most of the time talking to a really lovely girl about the inherent advantages of medical marihuana, and enjoying the free beer. At one point I got MJ’ed.

By the way, I’m moving in with her by the end of this month. We’re hoping to create a blogging ganglion of epic proportions and take over the world. If that fails, I’m sure we’ll at least achieve success in getting very, very drunk. (much beer is owed to Mr. Keith, my official housing agent and javascript guru, for pointing me in her general direction)

How have I been, you ask?

Great.

— sergio at 01:30 PM     TrackBack (0)

It would seem that every major event in my life has been punctuated by the presence of a woman. From the moment my head —amidst cries of agony and unbearable pain— came out of my mother’s womb, to the point where I left my native country to go live in the US (yesterday), I have had women egging me on, holding me back, making me happy, turning my life miserable or taking care of me.

Most of my relationships have consisted of a mix of the aforementioned, in unequal but always generous dosages.

Her name is Paola.

I met her after my relationship with Livier was over, at a point when the least I expected was to meet someone, with impeccable timing to find her treading water on the same metaphorical bog.

Out of necessity, I never got to fully explore the extent of my feelings towards Paola: The job offer (and subsequent possibility of moving to the US) presented themselves when I had been dating her for about two weeks.

A publicist cum-cinema student, she is pragmatic, strong, thoroughly independent and has the easiest, most musical laughter I’ve heard. Really smart, but not an intellectual. A cynic by trade and a hardened tequila drinker by upbringing, she used to flick my nose with her index finger when I made jokes about her. If I complained, she’d just dismiss me and say “oh, you’re such a baby”.

I loved her for that.

I don’t know how long I’ll be away. I am very excited about the possibilities and the changes that are presenting themselves before me, but the mere sight of the shirt that she gave me (“I *heart* carbs” food pyramid) reminds me of all the stuff I’m leaving behind. It is a weird thing when mirth collides with dysphoria. There isn’t much place left for actual feelings, so you just let yourself go, eventually reach the conclusion that the way to go is to get wasted, toast to her name, and concentrate on the matters at hand.

See you, Paola. It was amazing.

— sergio at 11:13 PM     TrackBack (0)