{"id":186,"date":"2013-02-07T11:49:05","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T17:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=186"},"modified":"2013-02-24T13:53:16","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T19:53:16","slug":"ch-2-a-i-change-directions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=186","title":{"rendered":"ch 2.a       I Change Directions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"ch 1. h    Confirmations\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=120\">&lt; previous\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <a title=\"ch 2.b     In which I fall in love\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=206\">next &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\nPrefer to listen?\u00a0 Click here:<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"mp3jWrap_0\" class=\"mjp-s-wrapper s-graphic unsel-mjp  verdana-mjp\" style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span id=\"playpause_wrap_mp3j_0\" class=\"wrap_inline_mp3j\" style=\"font-weight:700;\"><span class=\"gfxbutton_mp3j play-mjp\" id=\"playpause_mp3j_0\" style=\"font-size:14px;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<span class=\"group_wrap\"><span class=\"bars_mp3j\"><span class=\"loadB_mp3j\" id=\"load_mp3j_0\"><\/span><span class=\"posbarB_mp3j\" id=\"posbar_mp3j_0\"><\/span><\/span><span class=\"T_mp3j\" id=\"T_mp3j_0\" style=\"font-size:14px;\">1. Chapter-2-a<\/span><span class=\"indi_mp3j\" style=\"font-size:9.8px;\" id=\"statusMI_0\"><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><span class=\"s-nosolution\" id=\"mp3j_nosolution_0\" style=\"display:none;\"><\/span><script>\nMP3jPLAYLISTS.inline_0 = [\n\t{ name: \"1. Chapter-2-a\", formats: [\"mp3\"], mp3: \"aHR0cHM6Ly9oYW5pbGl2ZXMuY29tL3dwLWNvbnRlbnQvdXBsb2Fkcy9IUy1OZXctY2gtMi1hLm1wMw==\", counterpart:\"\", artist: \"\", image: \"\", imgurl: \"\" }\n];\n<\/script>\n\n<script>MP3jPLAYERS[0] = { list: MP3jPLAYLISTS.inline_0, tr:0, type:'single', lstate:'', loop:false, play_txt:'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;', pause_txt:'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;', pp_title:'', autoplay:false, download:false, vol:100, height:'' };<\/script>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo14.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-526\" alt=\"margarita &amp; kilim rug\" src=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo14-150x200.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo14-150x200.jpg 150w, https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo14-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo14.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>I hadn\u2019t had much contact with Marissa since I went to work at the Center, but she called me out of the blue one day with an invitation.\u00a0 Steve, before he turned to the ministry, had gone to Stanford, and had friends in Silicon Valley.\u00a0 They were going to a celebration party; some tech company had just gone public and there would be, as she put it, a lot of newly minted gazillionaires there.<\/p>\n<p>I would have said no in the old days, but now that I was on the spiritual \u2013 and psychological &#8211; upswing, I thought, why not?\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t interested in tech-heads, but it could be fun.\u00a0 I even bought a new outfit, a skirt I told myself was just a tad too short, and a blue sweater that made me, if no one else, very aware of what cleavage I had to show.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t bought anything new to wear since I started working again.\u00a0 When they came by to pick me up, Marissa exclaimed, \u201dThat\u2019s more like it!\u201d\u00a0 Steve gave a genial and most up-parson-ly wolf whistle.\u00a0 How long had it been since I\u2019d gotten reactions like that?<\/p>\n<p>So we drove almost an hour, out to this spectacular, angular glass house overlooking the Pacific.\u00a0 The place was already spilling out with a boisterous crowd, lots of nerds, judging from their un-modulated voices and awkward gestures; a sprinkling of more sober types I took for academics, a handful of lookers, or hookers, maybe, what did I know?\u00a0 They were too glam for this scene, for sure.<\/p>\n<p>Some guy in baggy, worn cords and a Yoda t-shirt handed me a margarita, welcoming me with nerdy puppy-dog eyes.\u00a0 I smiled and extracted myself to wander around, fascinated more by the house than the raucous partygoers.<\/p>\n<p>I climbed the stairs, carefully, as they were weirdly cantilevered and seemed to jut out of thin air.\u00a0 There was a wide landing that overlooked the main room, with a loveseat and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Two scruffy-looking men were planted there, deep in some technical conversation, of course.\u00a0 Ignoring them, I turned to browse the shelves, happily letting the noise of the crowd swirl around me, until someone bumped into me from behind, causing me to spatter my drink on the Kilim carpet.\u00a0 I turned to see a tall, raw-boned guy with a gentle face, looking a little out of it.\u00a0 He had this great smile, a heart-breaking smile, and a tumble of thick, dark hair that hadn\u2019t seen a haircut in a while.\u00a0 Hazel eyes, with those little crinkles at the corners, that sparked a sudden funny image of someone who smiled a lot at his computer screen.<\/p>\n<p>Intelligent eyes, that took a second to focus and lock in on mine.\u00a0 But then there we stood, eye to eye, and me feeling my heart thumping in my chest, like I was all of thirteen again, and face to face with some secret junior high crush.\u00a0 Except I wasn\u2019t thirteen and wearing braces and floral print overalls.\u00a0 I was all grown up, divorced, and lugging around a track record that wasn\u2019t very flattering.\u00a0\u00a0 On the other hand, I was wearing the too-short skirt and the sweater with the cleavage, so maybe the scales actually were tilting in my favor.<\/p>\n<p>But it wasn\u2019t just the bodily reaction.\u00a0 The guy apologized profusely, pulling out a handkerchief to dab at non-existent margarita stains on my skirt, while introducing himself with a kind of unconscious charm, as if he didn\u2019t get out much, didn\u2019t have a clue how attractive he was.\u00a0 I laughed, and then he did, too, and I made some lame crack about how I didn\u2019t much care for margaritas anyway, which was true.\u00a0 He asked what I\u2019d prefer, then motioned me to stay where I was, with an excited, kind of goofy hand gesture, like I was a golden retriever. \u00a0He ran down the stairs and was back in a flash with two glasses of white wine, climbing the steps two at a time with those long legs.\u00a0 He handed me a glass, with a big grin.\u00a0 Honestly, you\u2019d have thought he was Jason and just scored the Golden Fleece.<\/p>\n<p>His name was Bob.\u00a0 You might even know who I mean.\u00a0 Bob was one of the partners who had started this little internet security software business which, according to the news reports, had left each of them with over $250 million.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t know all that until later.\u00a0 At the moment, I was busy falling like a ton of bricks.\u00a0 It was absolutely the last thing I expected.\u00a0 If you\u2019d asked me, I\u2019d have probably said it was the last thing I was looking for.\u00a0 I felt the sticky little hands of Fate all over me, aware, even in my fog, that I had no choice whatsoever.<\/p>\n<p>I was already a goner.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Feels like home by Bonnie Raitt\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NFneklGez0s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And that was before we moved out on the deck where a half-moon was filtering through scattered clouds, and hurricane lamps were glowing along the railings.\u00a0 Bob pulled up a chaise lounge. \u00a0I sat, demurely pulling my legs in as I tried to manage the mini.\u00a0 He straddled the foot of the lounge with his long limbs, looking geeky and awkward and endearing as he talked, eagerly, with unselfconscious passion, about his plans for the future.<\/p>\n<p>I might have written him off, even then, as some big talking dreamer. His dreams certainly sounded bigger and more complicated, even more outrageous, than most people\u2019s.\u00a0 I might have assumed he was, as they say in Texas, all hat and no cattle, had not Steve wandered outside and over to us, rather endearing himself, a man of the cloth ever so slightly tipsy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey, Hani,\u201d he grinned.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019d better watch this guy.\u00a0 He\u2019s going to take over the world.\u201d\u00a0 He clapped Bob on the shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cSmartest damn guy in the room.\u00a0 Any room.\u00a0 And if they don\u2019t listen to him in D.C., he can just buy up the whole damn place, save the whales, save the glaciers.\u00a0 Two.\u00a0 Hundred.\u00a0 Fifty. Million. Dollars. \u00a0I salute you, old buddy.\u00a0 Just remember, Bobby boy, I knew you when\u2026 I knew you when you couldn\u2019t even front for a six pack\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bob grinned and kind of shook off Steve\u2019s comments.\u00a0 I took a minute to connect the dots.\u00a0 Bob?\u00a0 This sweet, kind of bashful guy? \u00a0He was one of the wonder boys we were here to celebrate?\u00a0 This guy in old Levi\u2019s and a sweater with a little moth hole in the shoulder?<\/p>\n<p>Steve drifted off, leaving us in a little bubble of our own.\u00a0 Bob started telling me about his plans, getting more animated and excited as he talked.\u00a0 About his ideas for environmental technologies, about his passion for making the link between the scientific issues of global warming and the political and governmental policies that had so far created such roadblocks.\u00a0 He viewed his financial windfall not as a license to kick back and live the easy life, but as an opportunity to apply his mind to problems no one else had been able to solve.\u00a0 He really was ready to take on the world, and, apparently, he might just have the brains as well as the bucks to do it.<\/p>\n<p>All at once, I found myself feeling like my own life was opening up.\u00a0 We talked until the party began to thin out, me blurting out the less-than-flattering details of my life to date, hungry to talk, hungry to be listened to with that intensity he seemed to bring to every subject, whether his own or mine.\u00a0 Then he drove me home, all the way back to Oakland, in his old Volvo with the duct tape over the rips in the upholstery, to my funky little apartment, where we sat on my lumpy second-hand sofa and talked the rest of the night.<\/p>\n<p>Bob wasn\u2019t like anyone I\u2019d ever known.\u00a0 His mind was all over the place, without doubt the most brilliant man I\u2019d ever come across, and yet I didn\u2019t feel intimidated.\u00a0 There was such a sweet geekiness to him.\u00a0 Without his seeming to talk about himself, I learned that he held 14 patents, always sought out a water source \u2013 lake, river, ocean \u2013 when he needed to think through some challenging problem.\u00a0 I learned that he dropped out of MIT his senior year; was married briefly, no kids; that Joni Mitchell\u2019s voice could make him cry; that his teenage sex fantasies about Princess Leia had never gone away, they\u2019d just gotten more detailed over the years.<\/p>\n<p>Incredibly, we were too busy talking to sleep together that night, though he was still with me when the bagel shop down the street opened at 6 a.m., and we were the first ones in.\u00a0 He downed several cups of coffee, and said goodbye with a hug that lifted my feet off the ground, and a kiss that left me staggering.<\/p>\n<p>I turned to walk back to my dingy apartment, to sleep away the rest of the weekend.\u00a0 Bob was off to deliver the keynote address at an international symposium in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"ch 1. h    Confirmations\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=120\">&lt; previous\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <a title=\"ch 2.b     In which I fall in love\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=206\">next &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &lt; previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 next &gt; Prefer to listen?\u00a0 Click here: &nbsp; I hadn\u2019t had much contact with Marissa since I went to work at the Center, but she called me out of the blue one day with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=186\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-186","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}