2001-02-08 - 21:43:09
I am a rock, I am an island ...

I finish up my work today with another Simon and Garfunkel song in mind. This morning I thought of "The Sound of Silence" ... this evening, I find myself humming "I Am a Rock" ... I always end up with their albums playing through my mind when I'm in a pleasantly melancholy kind of a mood.

I finished another project today at work ... another complicated series of queries and reports that no one here but me even comes close to understanding. It's difficult to be continually doing work that few people notice (unless they're the requesters) and fewer appreciate. The end product might look simple and easy; the underlying structure, the ugly part, is never seen by anyone but me.

Not that I really mind. That's what this job is all about; I don't fall under the "support staff" category just because they couldn't find anywhere else to put me. The way my job makes me feel, is kind of like the weather ... grey and cold and inhibiting on the one hand, but also holding the promise of hot cocoa and warm fires and sitting on the couch with a blanket watching my favorite movies. There's a good side, and a bad side.

Oh, enough philosophy; I think too much sometimes. Here's are the lyrics (from an online Paul Simon reference):

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.

I am a rock,
I am an is-land.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.

I am a rock,
I am an is-land.

Don't talk of love,
I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
And I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.

I am a rock,
I am an is-land.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.

I am a rock,
I am an is-land.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.