vacation, all I ever wanted (had to get away).

Working in Manhattan didn't exactly feel like a vacation.  We were bound to our computers during the weekdays, mere feet from one another, contorted by the worst ergonomics possible.  Coding from a sofa feels like a breakfast-in-bed luxury for the first few days, but then turns into a certain kind of bedridden-needs-breakfast.

On the horizon for 2013 vacation proper were the final two ever UK weekends for All Tomorrow's Parties, the music festival for music fans that hate music festivals.  A quick jaunt to Paris (my first time in France) was a lovely bit of escape from playing the role of rooster in our 6-person henhouse.

I'm normally of the mindset that the more work you put into organizing your trip, the more fun you can have in letting go once you are there.  While "winging it" certainly has its advantages, I typically only save that for slow travel, and slow travel off-season.  I quickly realized in my living among 5 other people that I was in no way a wh[at/en]ever roommate, and perhaps I've turned into a four-letter creature of comfort.

There's a certain kind of mental shift you go through in your younger years.  You become charmed by unusual philosophy (fuck you Ayn), jaded by hierarchy and authority (fuck you Hubbard), and often come to the conclusion that the people in charge are as-if-not-more clueless than the ant you realize you are.  Unfortunately hippie hugs and chill pills are useless in the face of why-are-there-no-clean-coffee-mugs and god-dammit-my-socks-are-wet-again.

I slowly realized that communal living is all about establishing lowest common expectations,  and there's usually one person that wants the bar higher than everyone else.  This marked the first time I've been that person, and it was interesting to see just how much the cheese stood alone.  Benevolent dictatorships are in no way the democratization of friendship, but in both business and otherwise: they get shit done.

I've historically saved Thanksgiving for friends and Christmas for family - savoring the vast differences in the gatherings year after year.  Previous Thanksgiving highlights were renting houses on the Oregon coast for the sole purpose of slow-moving gluttony and excuses for extended road trips.  This year the six of us spent far too much money on a single night in a fantastic London flat.  The owner was leaving as we were arriving, her partner wearing a chainmail coif in a non-ironic manner, her son of years past artfully featured in giant photo-frames scattered around the 4-floor house.  The glitter-covered horror movie posters completed the wonderful surreality in an otherwise modern, uppity home.  We were by far the loudest Brits in a nearby Indian restaurant, and coming back to a chilled, celebratory, duty-free bottle of Veuve Clicquot was the perfect pinnacle to this feast so very far away from home.

Flying back to New York was shortly followed by flying back to Seattle, and the silence in being back is near-deafening (but that could easily be the lack of car horns).  There is a palpable gap when you remove yourself from the social flow, and re-insertion often comes with the answer to the question "will I be missed when I'm gone?".  My closest circle is either thinly spread across the world or knee-deep in babies, and I'm struggling a bit trying to count time in the double dutch back home.

Though I must say the ease and thrill of leaving will never ever give you that warm sense of joy in opening your actual front door - utterly exhausted, and forever thankful.

in the thick of it.

The bustle through the hustle takes focus, awareness, and slowly drains away your need to be around other people.  I'm not sure I could actually live in Manhattan - each bout of fighting the flow comes with a craving of retreat, of surrender, and of eventually giving in to the oncoming shoulder-check once your reserves of being-most-polite empty entirely.

I've only listened to headphones once within it.  The speeding cars are quite rare, but quite dangerous.  A synchronized gasp erupted from our collective mouths last night when a woman crossed on a yellow, inches away from the impatient silver sports car, and inches away from being spread across Broadway.

But there are rewards for putting up with the madness.  This is my view, come sunset.  There is a palpable excitement that runs through this city.  A certain freakshow curiosity in exhibitionists fucking against windows sky-high.  The fact that anything could be happening behind those doors, and these doors.  The potential of this city is almost more intriguing than the reality of this city.

At least until you become part of the reality.  The most memorable moment started off waiting in line for half-price tickets at the Times Square Madhouse.  The lines wrapped five-thick, winding as they do for the finest of Six Flags attractions.  Ten minutes in and I hadn't moved at all - an inquiry as to where the secret Window 12 was had me into a line containing a mere handful of people ahead of me, total.  This was the line for plays only, and this was the line that received the most scorn from the DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG WE'VE BEEN WAITINGs - either ignorant that this existed, or people dead-set on seeing Annie.

No Man's Land was our top pick on my list of four possibilities, but it had two stars next to its name on the board.  Was it sold out?  Was it full price?  The barking face behind the thick glass wanted cash instead of questions, so I paid what felt far too much for half-price and slipped out of the tourist trap, and back to work.  My mind understood the fact that I had just bought tickets to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen on stage, together, but it wasn't until the curtain rose that the gravity of being there hit me.

So many people use celebrity sightings as a certain kind of identity, as if rubbing up against someone imbues you with even a hint of their success.  It drives me crazy, frankly, and is one of the biggest reasons I can't stand Los Angeles.  If you constantly wear stories of woven success as your sleeves, chances are you care far too much about some arbitrary, dare I say illusory concept of success.

I'd never ask someone I admired for an autograph, or a photo.  Somehow that feels like stealing time from their downtime.  But this.  THIS is how I want to spend time around incredibly talented people - seeing them performing the job that they have perfected over years and years, and feeling a certain sense of humbling privilege that I can be a part of an intimately shared moment.  A fabulous evening out and one I'm still pinching myself awake over.

Only in New York. *

* and any other metropolitan city, really

the endless paperwork trail.

Running your own show comes with some very real timesinks - specifically the annual and/or quarterly dance with the IRS and hungry local government.  There's a certain paradise of ignorance that you can float on for awhile.  Get your data into Quickbooks and renew your business license and pay your taxes once a year.  Accountant strongly recommended but not required.  Relatively simple.

The contract gig I've been doing came with some new-to-me caveats, particularly the fact that they are paying me through my company, adding an ever-widening complexity vortex that absorbs space and time and sanity.  The moment I became on the payroll radar was the same moment the alarms and alerts began.  Harassing-ish messages started landing on my voicemail, of missed due dates and threats of possible subpoena.  And here I stand wondering why exactly I'm paying unemployment tax on myself.  And how exactly am I supposed to file future unemployment claims against myself?  Relatively absurd.

A helpful hint for everyone visiting from Google - in Washington state you do not need to pay Unemployment Tax if you own your own company and have zero employees outside of yourself.  I was told this will probably change in 2014, but I can't wait to get back under this quasi-hostile government radar.

However, if you own your own business (specifically a S-Corporation) you are expected to pay yourself a reasonable salary so that the Federal government can get some of that sweet, sweet income tax.  Which is never an issue when you continually dump all of your resources into the ever-emptying coffers of zero-profit-meaning-zero-salary.  But I'm suddenly in a world where I'm taxed on both ends, where I'm paying taxes on expenses, and my reasonable hourly rate is suddenly not-that-reasonable.  And losing hours of research time among the weeds of conflicting legalese, the pinnacle of which is the ever-terrifying word "optional".

(Why would I ever optionally pay out anything?  Optional-as-required is far worse than required-as-required.)

In summary: don't ever try to invoice side gigs via your business, unless invoicing business is your business.  Let them do the work, carry the burden, and hire you on as a standard contractor.  Dream of running your own show?  Expect a good 5% of your waking time spent chasing down windmills like these.

not a bad place to work.

New York City public library.  I've been thinking Ghostbusters ever since.

and back, again.

I’ve contained a bubbling tirade for weeks, one where I justify removing a huge chunk of my Facebook friends list, rant endlessly about privacy and the illusion of our enclosed, social dam(n)s which have actually sprung dozens and dozens of information leaks to a wide sea of hungry life-as-comparison fish.  Not to mention the NSA-as-fisherman.  Did you see the latest privacy revision?  The one where anyone can find you by your name?  Stalkers, rejoyce!

TLDR: if we’re friendly and previously co-workers you should add me on LinkedIn.  I’ll write the best god damn recommendation you’ve ever seen.  If we were tight friends we’d probably be talking outside of Facebook on a regular basis, no?

AND BACK, AGAIN is what I titled this entry.  I'm back in New York.  Back in one of my best of friend's place... this time, without him.  It's odd because he's still here, and just beyond his musk is his entire point of reference - him living here for years numbering at LEAST I-can't-remember.  And me watering his plants.  (Probably too much.)

The device on her hip tells us we've walked 18,440 steps today, and I believe.  Leaning into the loud roar of this city has given me some needed short-term purpose, something to keep up with.  New York has no patience for patients.

This is my home, my new place to work for the next month.  This trip marks a certain responsible return to the workplace of the free - said without irony, even.  I've realized that my dream gig allows me to spend quality time with the latest of my sick newborns, and that any amount of brick-meets-headwound is absolutely worth being light on my feet.  It's harder to see when you're trapped in the undertow of "being the new guy".

TLDT: Marketing is everything, kids.  I've had dreams of YouTube, of angles and hooks and minimizing blood loss.  The cold reality of capitalism is that the sale has far more meaning than the meaning itself.  If I am to become successful I've got to make the people see what I see.

freefall.

Objective reality might as well be objectivism itself when it comes to measuring irony.  (Kant touch this.)  It was mere months after coming to real, tangible peace with the impossibility of love.   It was mere months before familiar conversation with a favorite familiar grew and narrowed and pierced and left me wanting more.  Wanting more, over 1000 miles away.

Falling for someone you already have a sense about seems like a common occurrence among the young – free of the mistakes-come-experience, surrounded by friends before understanding friendship, all of it accelerated by wide-open naiveté.  With age such a thing becomes novelty, nay improbability, as you take your chances and write your story using pens pressed from salt and chaff.  You find yourself in a strange place where those closest to you have been fully stripped of mystery and flippant possibility.  Perhaps that’s why we’re so afraid of being old and single and alone.  Not because we ultimately want to die beside someone.  But because we’ve run through our course of chances with those that actually know us.

She moved up to Seattle and we celebrated our one-year anniversary mere weeks ago.  I could write novels about how I feel about this woman, but I’d rather read them to her.  And I need to treat what we have as the fragile, breathing entity it is - rather than writing about it as something I’ve conquered and shelved.

The most mind-blowing of the realizations remaining is thus: I’ve spent my most recent life crashing my ego against the rocks of “trying to do it yourself”.  I’ve inspired and hired and fired and begged and lost it all, multiple times now.  If it wasn’t for the path I’ve taken, if it wasn’t for the madman-esque return to the sea, I would have never had the talk that slowly turned torrid.  Nine years of my life and nine years of effort, all of it for a simple chance at a re-introduction?

Worth it.  All of it.

I’m a lucky man.

repurpose.

This was never intended to be solely a place to write about travel. The double meaning of work was as much about "belonging" as it was "earning money". I've always loved drastically different meanings to the same word. For years I've been wanting to change my name - more as a symbolic snip from my church-or-war family name, but many hours have been spent combing over my mental micro-dictionary to find the perfect new me. (Same as the old me?)

I ended that search with one of the most displeasing names you would find in a Baby Name book. The word "wage" remains one of my favorites - both an incredibly intentional, committed action as well as a passive, limp swear word used in arms-up surrender to our freedom machine. But there's no romance to that word, and what good is a new name if it's ultimately an in-joke with yourself? Who am I kidding about flow of the tongue - I'd so name myself wage if I could come up with a banging last name to sit beside it.

I closed this book abruptly, a year ago. I skipped over all of the details, as if those years beyond 2010 were somehow devoid of life. But the reality of coming back home was incredibly tough. I'd felt quite distant from everyone but my closest friends - a 9-month play-by-dropbox game of Fall From Heaven 2 was the most constant of connections outside of my tumultuous affair with Facebook. I pulled all of those belongings from that small crate on my doorstep and asked myself what the fuck I was doing.

My impatient attempts at dating went sideways, I found myself in a short-lived relationship with the wrong woman, and one day hit a very specific calm in my romantic life. This hasn't been the first suddenly-permanent revelation that I've experienced - in my youth I was struck down on a very specific Sunday that I was no longer innocent. While the 20 year-old me went in search of an open tattoo shop, this one resigned himself to the tragedy of his comfort - I would truly be okay if I never fell in love again. That medicine sat thick in my throat and took me a month to swallow. But it was true, and I was grateful to realize I didn't have to keep throwing myself against the rocks of bad odds. The realization that I could live a completely satisfying life, alone.

That, and putting everything I had towards the finish line, was my spring of 2012.

restart. rearranging.

2010 was about eating my weight in experience, and the long list of bands I took in wasn't meant to serve as bragging rights. More the reminder of what I did and what I saw and what I felt and what I remember. This is three years from then, and the list no longer belongs as a constant sidebar and a constant reminder and some sort of ruler against which I should measure myself.

Reposting it for posterity sake so that I can move on:

2manydjs
65 Days of Static
Air
Akufen
Atari Teenage Riot
Autolux
Boban Markovic Orchestra
Booka Shade
Boys Noize
Broadcast
Caribou (x2)
Cave
Chemical Brothers
Chrome Hoof
Coldcut
Crystal Castles (x2)
DJ Cheeba
DJ Food
Dan Deacon
Daniel Higgs
Daniel Menche
Dosh
Drumcorps
Editors
Emeralds
Ex, The
Factory Floor
Fever Ray
Foals (x2)
Four Tet
Fuck Buttons (x2)
Fukpig
Glenn Branca & Ensemble
Godflesh
godspeed you! black emperor (x2)
Grinderman
Gum Takes Tooth
Hallogallo
Hangedup
Head of Wantastiquet
Her Name is Calla
Holy Fuck
Hot Chip (x2)
James Blackshaw
Jónsi
King Midas Sound
LCD Soundsystem (x2)
Lucent Dossier Experience
Marc Almond
Massive Attack
Master Musicians of Bukkake
Melt Banana
Miserable Rich
Modest Mouse
Mothlite
Napalm Death
Neurosis
New Pornographers (x2)
New Young Pony Club
Nisennenmondai
Obstacles
Panda Bear
Peaches
Pierre Bastien
Plastikman
Public Image Ltd
Qemists Soundsystem
Red Sparowes
Robot Koch
Roxy Music
Rufus Wainwright
Swans (x2)
These New Puritans
Tim Hecker
Tindersticks
Tricky
Unbunny
Weird Al Yankovic
Wolves in the Throne Room
Wooden Shjips
Voice of the Seven Thunders
Xiu Xiu
Zeni Geva

back to business.

It's hard to believe nearly two years have passed since posting the last entry, here. People use words like "rollercoaster" to sugar-coat and uptalk and fauxite what often ends up being countless hours of cold, numb grinding. But I did it. I launched what I set out to launch, skinless teeth and all. Dead broke and freshly-accomplished I had little choice but to put my newborn away and find a way to pay the rent. I wonder if mothers ever feel repulsed the moment that cord gets cut. Regardless, I needed the break away from mine. (Perhaps cellmate is the better parallel.)

They say that idiocy is next to godliness, and so I took a job at a pressurized and unstable Seattle startup. Where will I work? Wherever I can, right now.

More to the point of this resurrection: I'm fed up with the Facebooks and need a general outlet in which to get it out. There's but a single silent link leading people here, allowing the relative anonymity of this blog to give me a voice without the breadcrumbs.

I welcome ideas for how to circle the wagons a la the LJs of yore without having it all sold out from under you. Blogger might not be the best venue for such a thing. Perhaps these handful of entries are best left as a tiny time capsule, a marker of a journey that will ultimately outlive me.

In any case, I miss writing.