Well, it's tomorrow and Leslie's still gone. I was hoping that yesterday was a bad dream, but it wasn't and never is. Other friends and acquaintances of hers have accurately captured what a robust person Leslie was and I'll point you to those eulogies in a sec, but like most people who knew her, she did me a favor I didn't know I needed precisely when I needed it. Hell, I didn't even really know her at the time, but when I made a remark in a virtual forum we both frequented about not feeling completely comfortable being there, Leslie, as much as a person can do via email, shook me by the collar and told me, "you belong here". A small gesture and perfectly Leslie, but it helped me (eventually) find who I was. I'm glad I got the chance to thank her for that in person.
Kevin Fanning is collecting online rememberences of Leslie on del.icio.us. Some of my favorites are by Lance Arthur, Merlin Mann, Mike Monteiro, Mike Essl, Josh Allen, Danny O'Brien, and Kevin Fanning.
M: Ack, what are you doing?
J: I'm putting you in a wrestling hold. It's called a full nelson, I believe.
M: Well, that's not nice. This is how you treat your wife? How about a hug instead?
J: No, no, I am being nice...it's a love nelson.
Despite the sentiment, the love nelson remains an illegal hold of endearment in our household.
I've discovered that the only good thing about being sick is watching all 10 episodes of the excellent Band of Brothers series back-to-back for ~10 straight hours. I'm so ready to be better...before I try something stupid today like a trilogy marathon (Matrix, Star Wars IV-VI, or Lord of the Rings (extended version [yikes!])) or watching the entire 3rd season of Six Feet Under.
So, it turns out that weird popping noise I heard last night from the direction of the kitchen[1] was the can of Pepsi I'd put in the freezer[2] exploding. And now the inside of the freezer has cola-colored ice sprayed all over; it looks like a yeti projectile-vomited in there or something. Sometimes I don't feel ready to be an adult.
[1] "Huh," I thought when I heard it, "I wonder what that was?" And then before I could go check, "Ooh, something shiny on the Web!"
[2] To cool it down quickly because I was out of ice because, surprise, the ice trays don't magically fill themselves when you live alone.
I recently quit my web design gig and -- as of today -- will be working on kottke.org as my full-time job. And I need your help.
I'm asking the regular readers of kottke.org (that's you!) to become micropatrons of kottke.org by contributing a moderate sum of money to help enable me to edit/write/design/code the site for one year on a full-time basis. If you find kottke.org valuable in any way, please consider giving whatever you feel is appropriate.
This will be a one-time "fund drive" lasting 3 weeks, you may make contributions via PayPal, credit card, or check, there will be some great gifts as an incentive for you to give (more details here), and your contributions will be the primary means of support for the site. And yes, I have absolutely no idea if this will work and I'm completely nervous and exhilarated by the challenges ahead.
If you're uncertain as to whether you want to become a kottke.org micropatron, please read on. I'm going to explain what it is I'll actually be doing, why I'm doing it, how the site might change, and what I'll be doing with your hard-earned money.
Why are you doing this?
I've been self-publishing on the web for almost 10 years now, first with a little site on my school's web server, then on various ISP accounts, then 0sil8, and finally kottke.org for the last 7 years (almost). Looking back on it all, this little hobby of mine has been the most rewarding, pleasurable, maddening, challenging thing in my life. I've met so many nice, good people, formed valued relationships with some of them, traveled to distant lands (and New Jersey), procured jobs & other business opportunities, discovered new interests, music, movies & books, and lots of other stuff, all for putting a little bit of me out there for people to see.
And yet, I almost quit last spring. The site was getting out of hand and wasn't fun anymore. It was taking me away from my professional responsibilities, my social life, and my relationship with my girlfriend. There was no room in my life for it anymore. As you can imagine, thinking of quitting what had been the best thing in my life bummed me right the hell out.
After thinking about it for a few weeks, I had a bit of an epiphany. The real problem was the tension between my web design career and my self-publishing efforts; that friction was unbalancing everything else. One of them had to go, and so I decided to switch careers and pursue the editing/writing of this site as a full-time job.
Ok, but why else are you doing this?
- Blogging -- or personal publishing in general (not that they're synonymous) -- as a pursuit has been somewhat marginalized as a hobby or something one does to support other more worthy and/or lucrative pursuits. People leverage their blogs in order to write books, write for magazines or newspapers, pursue art or photography, go work for Gawker, Mediabistro, or Weblogs Inc., get jobs at startups, do freelance design (as I used to), start a software company, or as a vehicle to sell advertising. All worthy pursuits, but I'm interested in editing kottke.org as my primary interest; blogging for blogging's sake, I guess.
In the recent comics issue of McSweeney's, Chris Ware notes that "in the past decade or so, comics appear to have gained some greater measure of respect, due in no small part to the number of cartoonists who have begun to take the medium seriously". This is me taking online personal publishing seriously because I feel it deserves as much. - With decreasingly few exceptions, media is supported by advertising. Content on the web in particular is heavily ad supported. I'm interested in exploring other avenues with a special interest in discovering sustainable ways for other folks to do things like this as well.
- I'm attempting to revisit the idea of arts patronage in the context of the internet. Patrons of the arts have typically been wealthy individuals, well-heeled foundations, or corporations. As we've seen in many contexts, the net allows individuals from geographically dispersed locations to aggregate themselves for any number of reasons. So, when you've got a group of people who are interested in a particular artist, writer, etc., they should be able to mobilize over the internet and support that person directly instead of waiting around for the MacArthur Foundation or Cosimo de Medici to do it.
- I'm interested in too many things to settle on design or programming or writing or a particular topic. kottke.org indulges my desire to be interested in too many things (as Neal Stephenson put it recently).
- And not to get too mushy here, but this has been a dream of mine for a long time now. Thought it was high time to stop dreaming and start doing.
How will you doing this full-time affect the site?
First, let me tell you what won't change. The content on kottke.org will always be freely available to everyone who visits, regardless of whether you have contributed or not. No special "member" content or services. Think of kottke.org as non-crippled, fully-supported shareware...you only pay if you feel it's worth supporting.
kottke.org will also not become any less personal or any more professional. This is still my personal web site and is not going to mutate into a vertical blog about tech, design, politics, pop culture, or even asbestos. I'm not turning into a journalist. I'm still going to write and post almost exclusively about things I am interested in, whatever those may be at any particular moment. Just so you know, I may occasionally post cat photos, as is my right as the editor of a personal web site.
What might change on the site will be driven mainly by two conditions:
1. kottke.org is now my main professional priority. At long last, focus!
2. I will have available to me, for the first time in years, large uninterrupted chunks of time with which to produce creative works.
The goal is to use the increased level of focus and time to create a (much) better site. More time means there will be more content of a greater variety. Some days, that may mean more posts and more links. I'll be able to go to more (hopefully interesting) events in NYC (& elsewhere) and write about them. I'll have time do the occasional bit of real journalism, collaborate on neat projects like Dropcash, and do larger projects that require longer time scales to finish...dare I hint at a return to more 0sil8-like projects? (I dare.) And there are opportunities that I'm sure will present themselves as I settle into the luxuriant folds of full-timeness.
Why not advertising?
Like I said above, there's got to be a way to support media that doesn't involve advertising. But more than that, I don't want to disrupt the relationship dynamic we've got going here. There are currently two parties involved with kottke.org: me and the collective you. Advertising introduces a third party. In my experience, the third wheel of advertising often works to unbalance the relationship in favor of either the author or the readers (usually in favor of the author). If ads were involved, I might feel the need to change what or how I write to appease advertisers. I might write to increase pageviews and earn more revenue. I could fill pages with ads, earning more revenue but making the content more difficult to read or pushing some content off the page entirely. You could block advertising and deny me needed revenue.
None of that is appealing to me. If I'm writing, you're reading, I'm responding to what you've got to say about my writing, and we're mixin' it up in the comments, why do we need a middleman? Why not keep that dynamic intact if we can?
What's your monetary goal?
Quitting my job to run kottke.org full-time is possibly the dumbest economic decision I've ever made in my life. This undertaking so isn't about the money. (I'm gonna link to Ludicorp's about page here because their corporate philosophy matches well with my philosophy in approaching this.) At best, my goal is to make about 1/3 to 1/2 of my former yearly salary to support my efforts here for a year. I have no idea whether this goal is even remotely achievable...only the hope that it is and the desire to make it happen. Like I said, dumb economic decision.
As with anyone starting a new business, I've tightened things up in order to give myself the best chance of success. I've moved to a (way) cheaper apartment in Brooklyn, cut way back on eating out (I'm learning how to cook properly instead...hey, if I can learn to cook, you can pony up a couple of bucks), will be using my cache of frequent flier miles when I need to travel, and am curtailing my spending in general. It feels a lot like right after I got out of college...without the ramen noodles.
Are you excited?
If by that you mean "do you feel like you're going to throw up?" then yes.
Ok, that's about all I've got for now. That's definitely the most difficult thing I've ever had to write; I hope it came out OK. Thanks for reading and I hope you'll consider supporting the site. If you've got any questions, send me some email or find me on AIM (I may be a little slow on the IM uptake...I'm anticipating a busy day or two). I'll probably end up compiling questions I get into a later FAQ post of some sort (or making corrections/clarifications to this one).
Again, thanks for reading.
(Oh, and I should be on the webcam most of the day today. I guess you should be able to tell roughly how the above is going by how much I'm smiling. If instead you see me rocking catatonically in my chair clutching an empty pill container, call 911.)
Update: Hi there. Not a lot of time (today has been crazy! have you ever gotten IMed by 300 people in one day?) but things seem to be going pretty well. If you've emailed to ask to be put on the micropatrons list and don't see your name up there, don't despair...I've got a bit of a backlog. I'll get the names up there as soon as I can. And more later..but for now, thank you to everyone who contributed, you're too kind. Off to dinner before I starve.....
I've been busy. For as long as I can remember now. There was a point in my not-so-distant past when I wasn't so busy, but I'll be damned if I can remember what that feels like. Lately though, I've been a different kind of busy...I'm enjoying the nonstop rush of tasks, meetings, projects, emails, IMs, etc. for the first time in a long, long while. If I were feeling cynical, I might chalk it up to the giddy infatuation of starting something new, but I don't think that's it. I hope not, anyway.
I've been listening to a lot of music lately as well, and it's been taking me back into different periods of my life. I don't know how it is with you, but my life definitely has a soundtrack, songs and albums that remind me of people, places, and experiences. The soundtrack for the past few weeks includes Daft Punk, Bloc Party, The Pixies, Joy Division, The Life Aquatic soundtrack, The Arcade Fire, Scissor Sisters, Death Cab for Cutie, and a couple of mixes given to me by friends.
This is going to sound crazy to you, but both Joy Division and The Pixies are recent "discoveries" of mine. I'd heard of both before, but had never really listened to any of the music (I missed most of the 80s musically). I found Joy Division through the excellent 24 Hour Party People and first time I really heard anything by The Pixies was at one of their recent reunion tour concerts. What's amazing about both groups is how fresh their music sounds to me as a new listener, especially Joy Division. I imagine some of it is the lack of genuinely new sounds in rock these days, but these two groups both have well-deserved reputions as innovators and produced music that was ahead of its time. Glad I'm finally getting around to enjoying it. :)
Oh, and stay tuned for an announcement tomorrow (hopefully).
It's been awhile since we've talked, all of you and I. Here's what's going on with me:
I took the day off yesterday. Recovering from sickness.
I'm trying out TextMate after hearing good things about it from Jason Fried. I'm not a huge fan of BBEdit, so I'm always on the lookout for good text editors. Still getting the hang of it.
Last week, I saw a guy almost get hit by a van while crossing the street. He was pissed and understandably so. He was in the crosswalk with the walk signal and the guy in the van was super aggressive in trying to get through; the guy actually had to run out of the way to avoid being knocked down. The guy was so pissed that when the van finally stopped to let him pass, he reached through the window and beat the driver on the head with his cell phone. As a sympathetic pedestrian, I almost went over there to help him.
You can't even begin to imagine the fascinatingly insightful concept I was explaining in this photo. Perhaps "I can't believe my eyebrows are so bushy" or "That bottle of water...it's like, whoa."
If you look in the Activity Viewer and see that the Finder process is pegging your CPU at 90-95%, ask yourself if you've dragged a photo from iPhoto to the Desktop. If so, trash it and try to empty the Trash. If you cannot empty it because the file is still in use, run Force Empty Trash, reboot, and you're golden. God bless Google for helping me with the answer.
I owe you a post about McSweeney's #13. Jesus, that was more than 2 months ago. I'm sorry. (I also owe you a Last 100 Posts roundup. Sorry.) (Oh, and I also owe you the answer to the Ken Jennings question, but I can't actually tell you what it is yet. Nor can I tell you why I can't tell you. Sorry.) So basically, I'm really behind on a lot.
I miss when this weblog was more freeform. Stupid post titles and permalinks.
Got a new camera. Results soon.
So what's up with you?
1. I miss my iBook.
2. But I also missed Homesite. For my purposes, BBEdit is usable, but HomeSite kicks its ass all over the place.
3. Where to start with Outlook. I got so used to the many fantastic features of Entourage that Outlook (at least the version I'm using here) is almost unusable.
4. Why is the CTRL key all the way over there?
5. But damn, this Pentium 4 is fast. The iBook is downright pokey in comparison. Apple, your low-end notebooks should be 1GHz+...what's the hold-up?
5a. Ok, enough about the computer stuff.
5. My daily commute goes through Grand Central Station. I love Grand Central. Expect pictures at some point.
6. I am bad with names. I've forgotten all but three of the names of my new co-workers...I have only so many slots in my short term memory. Many weeks of "hey...you there..." to follow.
7. First day excitement and nervous energy dissipates by the afternoon, resulting in an afternoon crash into near-sleep. (Hearty lunch of soup may also have contributed to this.)
So, yeah, I got a new job. And this is probably the last you'll hear of it because work is one of the few things I don't talk about here. Postings may be light (and email replies will be really light) as I get adjusted to the new routine.
Rarely does a passage of text resonate with how I am as a person as the opening paragraph of Jonathan Rauch's Caring for Your Introvert did:
Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?
Well, except for the "dynamite" part of "dynamite presentation".
The Internet has helped me a great deal in this regard. Email, IM, and my weblog allow me to communicate with people when I want and how I want, without worrying about all the things introverts worry about when interacting with people: small talk, first impressions, awkward silences, etc. With the web, I can carry on a conversation with a whole group of people and stare down at my shoes at the same time. That's an amazing and special thing for me.
All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes JHason a dull boy. All work and no play makes jason a dull boy. All work and not play makes Jason as dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no playt makes jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. Alll work and no play makes Jason a diull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no playt makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. Allwork and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. all work and no play make jason a dull boy. All wotrk and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy.
Two years is about long enough. Several of my friends, upon visiting or moving to San Francisco, instantly fell in love with it. I like it OK, but I don't love it and never felt quite at home here for several reasons. But that's a topic for another time.
When the opportunity arose to move to New York, we figured why the hell not. So, we're taking up residence in NYC in December. We're busy with the many things we need to do before we go, but we're looking forward to the many things we'll be doing once we get there. Your suggestions on NYC living are welcome.
Had a bit of an earthquake last night. The apartment shook for about 2 seconds or so, a little creaking and rattling of things. My very first earthquake since moving here a year and a half ago.
This photo from SXSW 2000 makes me feel old somehow. Maybe it's because so much has happened since then. You can almost see the enthusiasm and hope of an entire industry and generation in the faces of these 10 people. Things went as planned for some while others found their lives following unexpected paths. Employment, lost love, marriage, depression, exuberance, shaken confidence, love, lost jobs, severed friendships, changing the world, uncertainty, new places, old hardships. Worth a thousand words indeed.
Bliss is interesting design work for which you get paid.
One of my girlfriend's good friends died earlier this week. He was only 24 years old. Motorcycle accident. Freakish kickstand malfunction. The funeral is tomorrow.
If you could, take a minute to think of the people you care about. Think about what you'd do if they were suddenly gone. Remember all the good times and adventures and moments you shared with them. Think of them as if they were gone and then remember that they're still here. Grab that feeling and keep it with you.
I've been wearing an old pair of pants this weekend...I've had them since my senior year in college. They used to be my favorite pair, but not anymore. Several shiny, new pairs purchased since have taken their place. I wonder if they feel neglected. Perhaps I should wear them more often...it might make them feel good.
Started a new job yesterday as a Web Designer with a local Web developer. I'm anxious to get going on some projects.
My new chair rules.
I went skating today for the first time in a year. Fun. Fun.
I went boating today. Is canoeing considered boating?
Finally, a new episode of 0sil8: The Great Mother's Day Car-Be-Que of 1999. The splash screen took forever for me to design...I didn't like any of the others I came up with and this one is just OK. Take some time to click through the pictures though...it's a neat little story.
Life is strange. I got an email from Daniel Kottke, the first employee of Apple, earlier this week...simply because his last name is the same as mine. And being such a big fan of that early history of PCs, that's pretty neat for me.
All my sports heroes* are retiring. Steffi Graf, one of my all-time favorite tennis players, won the French Open today and said she was never coming back. She's 30 yo this year and might not be playing in too many more tournaments. Michael Jordan is gone. Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, and even Scottie Pippen aren't far behind him. Wayne Gretsky is gone. The distressing thing is that there doesn't seem to be anyone coming up to take their places.
Or maybe it's just me looking at my childhood slowly slipping away and realizing I can never have it back the way it was.
* My definition of a hero is someone who is so good at something that it inspires me to be that good at something in my life.
Most of my ideas used to come to while I was driving or in the shower. Really. But lately, that hasn't been happening. Now when I'm driving, I'm usually too busy fighting traffic to think about anything. And I haven't been getting enough sleep to even be conscious in the shower. The end result of all this is that I'm not really feeling all that creative lately. No new ideas, no new twists on old ideas, no nothing. I'm just existing and floating along.
I stepped back into a former life this weekend. I thought I would miss college, but I don't. I do miss school though. I was good at school, damn good....it's probably the thing in life that I'm best at. College was a breeze for me. I just wish you could make money going to school.
I've been leaving my fly undone lately after I use the restroom. I never used to do that, but it's happened 5 or 6 times in the past two or three weeks. Do you think that this signifies a larger problem in my life? I hope not.
<sigh> Sorry about the lack of updates. I've been alternately extremely busy and extremely not busy. When I'm busy, I don't have the time to update. When I'm not busy, I just want to get away from my computer...thus, no updates.
Also, it's day two of the new job. For those of you playing along at home, that's three or four (depending on how you want to look at it) jobs for Jason in the last nine months.
Today's my second day of no work. No work is fun....especially when there's lots of email to catch up on. I'll get to yours soon, I promise.
I had a tough week last week. Severe life-changing decisions came to the fore. But, I got though it more or less unscathed. More or less.
As a reward, I bought myself one of those new Palm V organizers. Mmm...thinny.
[ This space left intentionally blank ]
Thanks to a little MTV viewing this weekend, I can't get that damn Britney Spears song out of my head. Maybe it's because the loneliness is killing me.
I'm anxious to see the results of my Amazon associates report this weekend to see if anyone actually buys the Britney Spears album from the above link. Come on, gang, you can do it!
And to round out the day's Britney Spears-centric entry, there's a song on the above album called "Email my Heart". Sad or funny? I'm not sure, but I wish there were a clip on the song I could listen to and possibly heckle.
Newsflash! Ariana hooked me up with lyrics to "Email my heart". Enjoy:
Forever
Its been hours seems like days
Since you went away
And all I do is check the screen
To see if you're okay
You don't answer when I phone
Guess you want to be left alone
So I'm sending you my heart, my soul
And this is what I'll say
Chorus:
I'm sorry
Oh so sorry
Can't you give me one more chance
To make it all up to you
E-mail my heart
And say our love will never die
And I, I know you're out there
And I know that you still care (I know you care)
E-mail me back and say our love will stay alive
Forever
E-mail my heart
I can see you in my mind
Coming on the light
And opening this letter
That I've sent a hundred times
Here's a picture of us two
I look so good on you
And can't you please forgive me
For the hurt I've put you through
Chorus (2x)
Have you ever had that feeling that you're at peak mental performance? Your thinking is clear, concise, and accurate...you can do no wrong? I had that feeling about 7 months ago...and then I lost it. My thinking has been muddled of late. I have trouble organizing my thoughts...good ideas come hard these days.
But as I think about it, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Being a little muddled makes me work harder. It doesn't allow me to get complacent. Hopefully, after a while, some good ideas will pop out of the fog.
P.S. Alt Text has some good stuff.
Jason is gainfully employed again. After 4 months of contracting and sitting around on my ass, I finally found a full-time job. I'm going to be a Web designer at a small ad firm in Mpls. called Kuester Partners. I'm pretty excited...it should be fun and challenging and all that good stuff. Wish me luck.
The adults had us fooled when we were kids. Yes they did. And I'm not talking about the Easter bunny or Santa Claus or the booger man. I'm talking about the flea circus. I think I was probably 16 or 17 years old before I figured out that there weren't actually any fleas in a flea circus. It was all just a trick, brought upon us by adults and Tom & Jerry cartoons.
As requested, more 0sil8 foolishness:
Jesse steals part of 0sil8 and puts it up at Quasistatic.
Caroline doesn't know what she's going to do with this, but here it is. She is also running Croon, which is a really great idea for a site.
Jason blithers and blathers about design on Glassdog.
It's come to my attention that there are certain former overlords out there that don't "get" 0sil8. I couldn't be happier.
Plus, I'm turning 25 in two days. And I'm getting the best gift in the whole world. :)
I went a'dancin' last night. Beat Radio is going off the air so they threw a little party at First Ave last night called "Beatoff". It was fun...for the most part...it was a little annoying because of the nature of the crowd. Usually, a techno show at First Ave means a techno crowd; a crowd that comes to dance and experience the event instead of scoping for that night's lay or getting drunk. Instead, last night's crowd was very much the typical bar crowd. Sigh. Don't get me wrong, the music was good (most of the time) and I had fun dancing, but it just wasn't the most ideal atmosphere to deal with when all I really wanted to do was dance.
Anyone out there ever done any shingling? It's pretty fun...and a welcome change from the computer. You're outside, getting a tan, wind in your hair, pounding nails, scraping up your knuckles on the shingles until they bleed, hoisting 75 pounds of shingles on your shoulder and climbing up a ladder. Ahhh...that's the stuff.
Also, go see Hey, Geek Girl. It's a perfect idea...advice for geeks from one of the coolest and smartest geeks I know.
My mom has email now. The Internet has officially Arrived™.
I just finished reading Tom Clancy's new book, Rainbow Six. It was OK.
The Avengers is possibly the worst movie I've seen since The Fifth Element.
Go rent Good Will Hunting. You know who you are.
I bought some drawstring pants. My unemployment experience is complete.
I will be gone for the weekend.
On the one hand, you've got the good. On the other hand, you have the bad. And then there's a bunch of stuff in the middle. I was in the middle for a long time. Most of my life actually...just sort of floating nonchalantly along.
Then life got weird. Ever since, I've been oscillating between the good and the bad, swinging (sometimes violently) back and forth from one extreme to the other. This weekend, I felt as bad as I've ever felt in my life. Despair the size of a watermelon. But, I also felt as good as I ever felt this weekend. Happiness you only see in the face of a small child during a really ripping game of Peek-a-boo.
And this existance is really different for me...I used to be on cruise control, but now I'm driving in the city, stopping and starting again at all the intersections. I really don't know where I'm going to end up. Is all this oscillating going to rip me apart or will I settle on one or the other or end up somewhere in the middle again?
Right now, the good is far outpacing the bad...and I think that trend will continue for a while.
Today is my last day at work. And people keep asking me if I'm sad to be leaving...like I should be, I guess. But I'm not sad at all. Not a bit. All the people I hung out with here, all my good friends, are gone already. I don't like the atmosphere here anymore. I don't like working here. There's no challenge anymore...if there was ever a challenge.
So I'm very happy to be leaving. And moving on with my life. Finally.
Things have been happening. No, let me rephrase that: Things™ have been happening. That's why I've been less than punctual in updating this journal, and to a lesser extent, this Web site. Here's what's been going on:
The first Thing™ is that I quit my job. Finally. I worked at Imation Internet Studio/Imaginet for almost two years...and it was fun...for a while. Then, I figured out that it just wasn't the place for me...in almost every way one can imagine. So I quit. I'm going to take two or three weeks off to walk the earth and then figure out what I'm going to do next: freelance Web design or sign on with another (better) Web shop here in Minneapolis. Decisions, decisions.
As for the second Thing™....no comment.
I wasn't going to update this thing until I had some significant time to reorganize some things and tell you about all the cool stuff that's been happening to me. But, I had a dream last night I just had to share.
"But Jason, this isn't a dream journal." Duh. However, I never, and I mean never, remember my dreams. But last night's I did. I was at a house, a typically suburban house, and I was being instructed by some family members to park my uncle's car when he arrived...a parallel park, just slightly up on the curb. Why up on the curb? I really don't know, but it had something to do with Lenny Briscoe (a detective from NBC's Law & Order) killing my uncle when he drove up. And then we went in the house, except that when we got inside, it wasn't a house at all...it was something else. What it was I don't remember.
The end.
Every time I've turned around in the last week, someone's coming out of the closet. It's silly really...why do people have to do this? I know why, but it's still silly. People are the way they are. That's it.
I've thought long and hard about my attraction towards men. There is none. And I've tried to see it, believe me. Leonardo DiCaprio might be the most attractive man on the face of the earth, but I really don't want to fuck him, much less kiss him or hold his hand. And I've accepted my heterosexuality. But no one cares...society expects me to be heterosexual. And no one should care about my friends' bisexuality or homosexuality.
People say I'm a bitter fuck...and I am most of the time...but I really do yearn for a world where people aren't judged by factors out of their control (skin color, sexual orientation, disability, etc.). It pisses me off.
I played my first ever round of golf yesterday. Not bad, not bad at all. I sucked, of course, but I did manage to bogey the last hole.
One of my best days ever.
I went grocery shopping last night at the local superstore. Afterwards, I noticed a young couple in the parking lot. They were dancing...spinning and twirling together. Hugging, kissing. oblivious to the 10 or so people watching them. I was happy. Because I was witnessing True Love™, like in the movies.
My happiness quickly passed, much to my surprise and chagrin. It turned to sadness and just a little bit of jealousy. I've never experienced True Love™ before...never even close. And that made me sad.
