Work is quiet this week. The only real piece of news is a downer: Singapore Airlines announced today that they are no longer paying travel agents commission. I wasn't being precipitate a few weeks ago when I was talking about the changes in my chosen field. I knew this was coming. I hoped it wasn't going to be this soon. Sadly, I'm afraid next year may be my last year in the industry. If the airlines stop paying us commission, then they sure as hell aren't going to keep offering agent rates, and if I can't get any perks at all then it becomes just another clerical job. What a big, motherlovin' drag.
In pursuit of seasonal joy, John put up lights on our back fence tonight while I baked chocolate chip cookies. I hope people passing on the sidewalk will feel glad to see our lights. They're so cheery. I love seeing them as I type. I guess it's the lights that are making me so happy, although it could be a major sugar rush from all the cookies I ate, too. Or it could be the new Architectural Digest that I'm reading.
I can't properly explain the great satisfaction and pleasure I get from looking at interior design and architecture. It's history and language; it gives one a vernacular, and a sense of temporal location. It's artistic as well, and that's important, but I don't have the same passionate response to fine art, for instance, that I do to a Palladian villa. Something about the physical structure of buildings matters to me. I don't know where it comes from, but I know I am deeply affected by something others take for granted. One of the reasons I am so out of reason attached to San Francisco is the physical landscape of buildings, the patterns and geometry of streets and hills. I'm getting to be rather fond of the part of the peninsula where I live now, but it doesn't cast a glamour over me.
I have, however, decided on two areas where I want to buy a house, and I'm now going to concentrate on them. Our "new" agent turned out to be a bust, so we're back with the old one. We looked at a place over the weekend but couldn't bring ourselves to buy it because the location was not so hot. I'm not living next door to a guy straight out of Deliverance chewing tobacco and cleaning his guns and yelling at his kids and keeping his car up on blocks, if his counterparts live behind and on the other side of us as well. Nuh-uh. We had a good talk with the agent, and I said, "Here and here. Find us houses in those areas, and we'll buy in a New York minute." We know we can afford it, we just have to wait for the right property to come up. I'm still packing my china.
In a while, I'll go out and celebrate the winter solstice under the full moon with my dog. We'll walk through the quiet streets, admiring the neighbors' displays, admiring the silvery moonlight on the bare trees, and I'll let all the different lights of the season gladden my heart.
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