crazy business

So I've just been given a house-sized bundle of cash to build the nucleus of a virtual reality research centre. Though I'm not sure why these surreal things are suddenly happening to me, I was pretty happy about this (happiness tempered with fear of failure, of course). I came home to share the good news with my wife and then spent a good hour rolling around on the carpet with two feisty toddlers. Skin on skin, lips on cheeks, the occasional jolly little fart followed by gales of giggles. Nothing virtual about any of that, and hard to believe that kind of sensory maelstrom could come down a fiber optic conduit anytime soon. It was nice to have that perspective. Over the rest of the evening, as the edge has worn off the panicky quickness of all of this, I've come to wonder if my role in this madness is to be a kind of visionary pundit or something. I don't really know very much, but I seem to be able to draw big pictures with words that excite certain types of people. So I'll focus on that part for now and leave the stunning scientific discoveries to the young'uns with all that youthful stamina. I'll be Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. Not often on the screen, but always in the picture. That's the hope, anyway.