Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Since moving into my new apartment, I've done something very arcane that harkens back to a bygone era-- I've subscribed to an actual newspaper. Now, it might not surprise you that the paper to which I subscribed was The New York Times. I subscribed to the NYT when I lived in Austin and I never picked up/renewed the subscription when I moved to North Carolina, in part because I was so busy with classes and what not I knew I wouldn't be able to read the paper regularly. But now that I have a little bit more free time, coupled with the new apartment, I decided it was time to re-subscribe.

Anyways, there was an article in the August 24th issue that caught my eye and was about (at least in some respect) something I love so very much: coffee. The article in question deals with the places where many of us go to have our coffee in addition to read/meet up/work/write/hang out/talk with people-- the coffee house. The article itself was titled "The New Coffee Bars: Unplug, Drink, Go" and discusses how many new coffee shops and coffee bars opening in NYC are forgoing couches/abundant table space/countless power outlets to prevent people from bringing their laptops and spending lots of time there, while instead favoring counters and high chairs that are closer to a "bar" setup. The article then discusses one example of these newer coffee bars that has been opened in Brooklyn, Café Grumpy, which the article goes on to describe as being

[O]ne of a growing number of coffee bars that have opened recently around the country, particularly in New York. Instead of idling at a chair, customers at these establishments stand or perch on a stool to down a cappuccino or an iced coffee at the counter. By doing away with the comfy seats, roomy tables and working outlets that many customers now seem to believe are included in the price of a macchiato, the new coffee bars challenge the archetypal American cafe.

Coffee-bar owners say that while space and rent can be considerations, they’re installing counters because they create a lively environment where it’s easy to have a quick, convivial exchange. “There’s clearly a philosophy behind the coffee bar,” said Christian Geckeler, who describes his ongoing odyssey to taste the country’s best coffee on Manseekingcoffee.com. “It puts the emphasis on the coffee and the barista.”

The article, by Oliver Strand, goes on to discuss how more and more coffee "bars" are popping up and that they are closer to those seen in Europe. While there are some cafés in Europe that lend themselves to more leisurely coffee consumption, there are also many more that are places for quick cups of espresso modeled very much after a bar (and you don't see as many people with books and/or laptops at the more expansive cafés either). But in America, by and large, every coffee house is in that "café" model where people can come and stay, often using laptop computers or reading or sitting and talking. I can understand the value of each approach, and thus I can understand why some places are moving from that "café" model to the coffee bar style especially in these tough economic times when real estate is a premium and places don't want to rent the space required in addition to the other overhead to have that "café" environment.

I think it's interesting that this was a piece that came out of New York and focused on the changes in New York for two reasons. One is that Greenwich Village is probably the breeding ground for this American café/coffee house model (something I'm acutely aware of given my academic interest in Kerouac/the Beat Generation/50s and 60s counterculture) but also that I never really thought that New York was overflowing with those kinds of cafés where people could just... sit and be. In New York, such a premium placed on space as well as the general go-go lifestyle that pervades The City That Never Sleeps. While cities like Austin and San Francisco, cities that have a slightly less hectic and relatively "newer" feel to them, seem logical to have lots of cafés and coffee houses, cities like New York (except for Greenwich Village, which is a bit of an anomaly) and Washington D.C. and Boston don't really lend themselves to those kinds of establishments. Those aren't cities where sitting around and spending time just... sitting is really normal behavior. So I can understand why a city like New York wouldn't universally accept places like your average café-style coffee house and would shift towards this "coffee bar" style. Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting and was worth talking about here.

But something else I wanted to also touch on was what good/what purpose these café styled coffee houses serve and why I think they should persist and have some presence in the grand scheme of things. Some people like to use places such as these if they don't want to pay for internet in their home/apartment/hovel and thus take advantage of the (usually) free internet you can find at your average coffee house. And if that was the case all the time, then I can understand why coffee houses might want to go to a different model to keep people from "setting up camp" and instead promoting turnover and more customers. But, as someone who has internet in his apartment yet still frequents (with an almost ridiculous regularity), I still go to these places and write/browse the internet/read and I know some people wonder why that's the case. I mean, wouldn't I be able to work better if I was in isolation, by myself in some private place? Well that's not the case, at least for me. I find that if I'm in total isolation, if there isn't some kind of ambient or distant activity around me that I'm not able to focus. If there's a vacuum and nothing else besides me, I tend to fill it by getting distracted and doing things other than the things I need to be doing. But if I go to a coffee house, I can put on my headphones and listen to music (which allows me to focus) but I don't feel so isolated and alone because there are things going on around me as well. It makes you feel isolated and that you can do what you need to do, but you don't feel so alone that you're distracted by that solitude. It's hard to explain, and it might not be that way for other people, but that's the way I feel and I know there are other people who feel the same way. While the idea of spending all day in a coffee house working and writing might sound strange (and lazy) to some people, I'm here to say that it has some value beyond the free wifi and thus that model of coffee house should not be immediately dismissed. I understand why certain places might want to go to that "coffee bar" model, especially in a city in New York, and I think they serve a great purpose in that European model. I just also believe that the café style has a place and serves a purpose (at least for people like me) and I would hate to see it disappear completely.

Literary Polygamy

I recently heard an interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation with the author of an article for the Chicago Tribune by cultural critic and book reviewer Julia Keller. Keller recently wrote an article on a subject that was of particular interest to me. Keller's piece examined the whole idea of only reading one book at a time and the stigma that goes along with someone who reads more than one book at a time, yet how that approach might be better or yield a greater and more enriching reading experience. For me, this was an issue that hit very close to home as I am someone who almost always has more than one book going. Now part of that was by virtue of being an English graduate student, so I had my class reading in addition to reading I would be doing for other academic projects and then things I would read for "fun" or outside of the literary world.

I've tried to only read one thing, and I remember really sticking strictly to that pattern for my non-class reading as a sophomore in college. I guess, as I became involved in the English/literary scene, I thought there was a certain seriousness involved with only reading one book at a time and that was the way things went. But even as I read one book at a time, what Keller calls "serial reading," I found myself getting hung up in certain books and eventually needing to read something else to break things up. As I put it, I "cheated" on the book I was reading with another book that I was maybe a little more excited at the moment to read. And like so many things where we make "one time exceptions," my whole system came tumbling down and I began reading multiple books at a time.

And, like so many things, there is a good and bad side to reading multiple books at once. Of course it enables you to learn and discover a much wider range of things. Some books take more time to read than others (and I'm not just talking about page lengths, but certain styles or subject matters tend to be denser and slower reading as opposed to others) and closing off your reading experience limits the things you can discover. But the flip side of this, and what ends up happening to me a lot, is that we don't always finish what we start as we move from one book to another. The list of books I started reading and then "lost track of" as I began to read something else that stole my attention would be a very long one, and it's unfortunate because there would be some great and important books on that very list. But I don't think it has anything to do with how good or bad the given book is, but it is all about how we, as the reader, feel at that moment and this is a point that Keller touches upon in how she organizes her reading. Keller writes:

Life, I maintain, is enriched year-round when lived amid a multiplicity of books, all of which you're reading concurrently. You can juxtapose a melancholy book with a more hopeful one, a great fat shout of a book with a whisper-thin one. You can mitigate an intimidating hunk of literary fiction such as Jonathan Franzen's meaty new novel "Freedom" with a light, palate-clearing sprig of chick lit. You can deliberately set books against each other — the eloquent misogyny of a Philip Roth novel such as "Sabbath's Theater" (1995), say, can find itself stared down by a novel such as Margaret Atwood's "Cat's Eye" (1989), a story predicated upon the audacious notion that women possess souls as well as bodies.

In that way, books are a lot like songs and albums and sometimes we will listen to a certain kind of music at a certain time of day, but maybe we don't want to listen to that later when our mood is different even if we haven't listened to the entire album. And in that same vein, the book we would read in the afternoon might be different than the one we reading in the evening and that might be different from the book we read before we go to bed. Keller also writes of the synergy that can emerge by reading multiple books at the same time, and I think there's a great deal of truth and potential in that point. Then, if you are learning or discovering something in one text, it might illuminate something you might not have noticed in another. This happens a lot in the English classroom, as students will often bring up books they read in other courses in different classes with different professors. So what makes it wrong to take that approach and move it into the world at large?

I don't think that my way is better than reading one book at a time, nor do I think that serial reading is vastly superior than reading many books at a time. Yes, you might end up not finishing some of the books you start if you are reading multiple books at a time, but if you're forcing yourself to read one thing because it's the only thing you're reading then you might not get everything out of it. It's really about what works best for one's given mentality and how they are wired. As someone who enjoys multi-tasking and who also has many diverse interests, I find myself almost having to read multiple books at a time to satisfy my intellectual curiosity and the breadth of my interests. Now I try to balance things out in some ways. For example, I try not to have too many novels going at once, and I try to balance fiction with non-fiction and even within the non-fiction I like to break that up a little bit (books about current politics, history and sports) and even different genres and styles (novels, short stories, poetry, essays). But even though I understand why exactly I read multiple books at a time and have a rhyme and reason to my approach, it's still reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who thinks about these things.

Movie Review- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Everyone has their summer movie, at least it seems that way amongst my friends and peers. There's always the one movie, usually a big one, that comes out during the summer that someone gets really excited about. While there were lots of candidates out there this summer (perhaps, most prominently, Inception), I knew which film was going to be "my movie" for the summer, and it was the one I was certainly the most excited about. That movie was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, directed by Edgar Wright (who previously directed Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead) and based on the graphic novel series by Brian Lee O'Malley. The film tells the story of Scott Pilgrim (played by Arrested Development's own Michael Cera) who lives in Toronto and plays bass in a band called Sex Bob-Omb and dates high schooler Knives Chau (played by Ellen Wong) until he sees Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who moved here from New York City and falls in love with her. However, there is one condition if Scott wants to be together with Ramona-- Scott must defeat Ramona's 7 evil exes in video game-styled fights.
After hearing that they were making this movie, and then reading the graphic novels and seeing the trailers, I knew from the beginning this was going to be a movie that appealed to certain people (of the geeky persuasion, like myself, and people around the same age as me) and those people would like it, and it would not register at all with people on the other end of the spectrum. 


Discerning the "stakes" or the goals for a film like Scott Pilgrim is important to evaluating and reviewing it. Wright had a difficult task ahead of him, because he was tackling an adaptation of a series of graphic novels with a solid following and that presented him with a lot of material. Six books, seven evil exes... there's a lot of ground to cover in the span of a 2 hour film, but I think Wright did a good job of synthesizing the material in order to make the film work. Wright incorporated all the main and important plot points, as well as the more important or central... flourishes (?) that one sees in the graphic novels. Of course, having read all of O'Malley's graphic novels, I knew there were things that were either left out or ideas that were incorporated into the film in other ways. Wright's adaptation proved to be faithful for the most part to the overall narrative of the source text, and thus avoided the potential pratfalls of adapting a book into a film. Like I said, Wright was jumping into the deep end by taking on a story that provided so much backstory and potential, but I think he by and large did a good job incorporating and synthesizing and deserves a great deal of praise for that given the high degree of difficulty with this task.

Michael Cera did a solid job as the titular title character Scott Pilgrim, hitting the right notes and following through on the model presented in the graphic novels. My one problem with Cera is that he's too nice/cute/innocent and sometimes Scott Pilgrim needs a little bit of an edge and a kind of... jerkiness that Cera doesn't really have (at least in my estimation). That's what makes the Scott Pilgrim character interesting and real-- he's not a perfect guy all the time. I mean, he's not "bad" and he's an easy character to like, but he's human and young and thus he sometimes doesn't do the best things and makes mistakes, especially in regard to relationships and the opposite sex. I think casting Cera prevented Wright from really developing that aspect of the character, though Cera does bring out the earnest and sweet side of the character. Again, this might be a choice made by Wright, to de-emphasize that "side" of the character, to keep the film under control. I don't think this took away from the film at all, and now I have a hard time thinking of anyone else who could play Scott Pilgrim, but I do think that the "other side" of the Scott Pilgrim character had to be underplayed a little bit because of that choice. However, that has nothing to do with Cera and his performance, and I think he did a great job and made the character we saw on the page translate onto the screen. Winstead, playing Scott's beloved Ramona, was outstanding and did a great job with the character and keeping it pretty close to the Ramona we see in the graphic novels. I've heard some criticisms that we don't get enough in the way of backstory and so the characters occasionally come off as flat, and sometimes I think Winstead falls victim to that, but I also think that attitude is part of the character. Winstead does a great job of getting the complete Ramona, as someone who is trying to escape something and protecting herself, which necessitates a kind of distance and coolness. Also, there is a certain erratic-ness and eccentricity to Ramona we see in the graphic novels, and I don't think the people who levied those criticisms understood that.

Beyond the two leads, Ellen Wong was very funny as Knives Chau, the high schooler Scott dates before he meets Ramona. In addition to that, there were also standout supporting performances by Anna Kendrick as Scott's sister Stacey, Allison Pill as Kim Pine, Sex Bob-Omb drummer and ex-girlfriend of Scott and Kieran Culkin in a scene-stealing performance as Scott's gay roommate Wallace Wells. I won't go through and talk about all of the evil exes because there are, you know, 7 of them, but I thought two really stood out-- Brandon Routh as one of Ramona's exes who is a vegan and plays bass in a band with Envy Adams, Scott's ex-girlfriend who broke his heart, and Jason Schwartzman in a hilarious turn as Gideon Graves, the ultimate and final ex that Scott must fight. Schwartzman does a great job as the slimy and (for lack of a better term) douchey ex-boyfriend, the "boss" ex-boyfriend to use a video game term, and does a great job of bringing the Gideon we see in the graphic novel to life.

Now, that kind of video game jargon is very appropriate, as the film is shaped according to video game aesthetics and those sensibilities dominate the film. This is another thing I've heard the film criticized for; those critics have felt that the whole "video game" aspect of this film, particularly as seen in the fight scenes, wears thin after a while. But Wright stays true to the source material as the graphic novel is totally infused with this kind of video game knowledge and sensibility, and consistently uses it throughout the film.  Perhaps it is because I am of a certain generation and I've responded to this film, but I didn't find it particularly distracting or redundant. I mean, complaining about the video game motif in Scott Pilgrim is like complaining that Lord of the Rings is too fantastical or there's too much stuff about space in Star Wars. The movie, like the graphic novel, is very much participating and existing in a world of video games that is inhabited by people who are aware of those things, and thus it has to be a central part of any adaptation of the story. 


The film itself is beautiful from a visual perspective, at times frenetic (especially during those fight scenes) with a certain futuristic beauty. It's beautifully rendered and that makes it fun to watch, not just because of what is happening but also because of how the action occurring on screen looks. My biggest criticism of the film, something that I think hurts the film a little bit, is the ending. I don't want to get into it too much so that I won't spoil it for anyone, but I will say that the ending feels extremely tacked on and a little bit forced. It felt as though Wright had an ending he needed to reach, but they didn't leave enough time in the film to reach it naturally. 


After seeing the film for the first time, I've read statements by Wright about the ending and how it was affected by the publication of the final volume of the graphic novel series, things that perhaps explain why I feel the way I do but it doesn't make those feelings about the ending any less real. I'm happy with the ending they chose, but I just think the way they got to it was lacking and felt extremely rushed and thus took away from its power and immediacy. Also, I didn't like the way Wright deviated from the source material in the final fight with Gideon with how he used Ramona and Knives, particularly how he used them interchangeably., though I won't say anymore about that here. Though I think it yielded an interesting conclusion and emphasized the theme and notion that we can't run from our past but we have to live with it, it ultimately felt a little strange and like too great of a divergence from the source material. Wright did such a great job leading up to the ending, but I feel like he lost a little bit of control at the end and it fell a little bit flat and didn't live up to the promise set up by the action that preceded it. I also have some interesting thoughts and criticisms in regard to the ending, but I don't want to get into those thoughts here, as I don't want to spoil anything. But if you have seen the movie and want to hear, just let me know in a comment and I'll e-mail you my thoughts.


Even though the ending of the film feels a little rushed and tacked on, I don't think it takes away from what this film is-- an entertaining, fun, exciting and sweet film. There is an earnestness and sweetness to the romance between Scott and Ramona, and that love between the two characters really permeates throughout the entire film and makes it more than just a highly stylized video game-esque movie. There's heart there and you want to see Scott earn the hand of his beloved Ramona because you see how he is willing to fight on behalf of her. The heart and the sweetness is what makes this film a cut above, and that's definitely a result of Cera and Winstead as well as Wright's direction.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is (in my estimation at least) a perfect summer movie that strikes a balance between the showy visuals and action of most blockbusters while also infusing those aesthetic achievements with a heart and romance that stands up on its own. The actors are great and do a good job with their respective parts, with Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the lead roles while there are also scene-stealing supporting characters throughout the film. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the ending, or perhaps I should say the pacing of the ending, but I think that has more to do with my position as someone who has read (and loved) the graphic novel series and less to do with Edgar Wright's direction. It's a bit unfair to hold that against the film because there is much more room for pacing and setting up an ending, just like there's more room to further develop certain characters who don't get as much attention in the film... but I can't help it. Those criticisms, however real and true they are, don't sour the entire film though. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a fun and visually stunning film that geeks (like myself) will love but will also resonate with anyone in the 18-27 demographic, as well as people who love the interplay of action (and fantastical action) and comedy. Edgar Wright has done a great job with the adaptation of Brian Lee O'Malley's graphic novels and takes the magic on the page and brings it to life on film. A supremely entertaining film with a killer soundtrack as well, I give Scott Pilgrim vs. the World a B+ (though I'm grading on a bit of a curve because I'm familiar with the source material) and would definitely recommend that you go see it, especially on the big screen. 

On Not Being Back at School

For what has seemed like forever, the fall has always been "back to school" time. I know this isn't the strangest feeling in the world to have, since most of us spend the majority of our lives (or our young lives at least) in some kind of school-- elementary school, middle school, high school and potentially onto college. But this association of fall and "going back to school" and the anticipation that goes along with that time was truly solidified within me when I made the choice (at least in my own mind) to continue on the academic track and be involved with that world as my chosen career as an undergraduate. I thus was under the impression that fall would always be "back to school in one capacity or another; it would just be a fact of life. But then last spring happened, and staying in school stopped being an option, at least for the time being.

Now it's fall again, or perhaps I should say it's "back to school" time. Most of my friends are still in graduate programs and they are getting ready to take classes and start reading and working on papers and things like that. Those people who aren't still in school in one form or another are either starting jobs or have been employed and thus have a job. While all these things are starting or continuing, I'm... not doing anything and I feel completely empty.

Now, I know there's a reason why I'm not doing anything right now-- namely, the LSAT course I'm taking doesn't start for another couple of weeks and I know I still have some time before I need to get working on all my applications. But I'm still filled with this emptiness, this lack of definition because I'm not in school and I'm not "working" and it makes me feel like I'm not totally myself.

I know I could undertake a full on job search and find something/anything, but I know that probably isn't smart if I want to make the best effort in terms of my applications to law schools and English PhD programs and American Studies PhD programs. I felt like one of the biggest problems with my application effort last fall was that I was way too busy between class work, my work at the Writing Center and getting the ball rolling on my thesis, and all those other complications and responsibilities kept me from sending out the best applications I could potentially make in some form or another. Thus there is a reason why I'm not throwing myself out into the job market right now but I still feel like... I should be.

There's a certain emptiness that I've been feeling, or perhaps I should say a weightlessness that comes with a lack of purpose. I'm not a student anymore and so I feel much more insignificant and lacking in self worth. In that regard, I'm definitely looking forward to having my LSAT course start in addition to applications to schools becoming more of a reality, even though I know I'm going to hate all the work and miss being able to set my own agenda and do the things I want to do during the day. But at least I'll be back to being a student in some capacity and I'll be able to experience the purpose and focus I've taken on for this fall. I know I shouldn't be feeling this worthless because there's a reason for all this (I will have a purpose, namely taking a standardized test and applying to a lot of programs, very soon) and yet I worry that it won't be enough and this alien feeling that makes me feel distant and cut off from everyone (especially people who are still in school) won't be going away.

For the first time in a long time, I'm not a student and I'm not getting ready to go back to school after a summer break. I'm not going to have the structure of classes and reading assignments and papers (now there will be work/studying/reading for the LSAT prep course, but that's not the same as a class class). I feel like I've lost a big part of my identity by having lost this (at least for the time being) life of a student, and it's definitely made me feel like I'm not quite myself. Not being filled with nervous excitement and anticipation the night before the first day of classes is going to be extremely strange, and it's something I'm going to have to deal with.

In a weird way, I'm excited for all those people who do get to go back to school and re-enter that world. Maybe I feel like I'm living a little bit vicariously through them. Though I know I'll be happy I'm not in the midst of papers and huge reading assignments by the time the middle of the semester rolls around, it's also always going to be weird for me to not be in the thick of it even as all my friends are. I know it's trite for me to wish and hope that all the people starting up school will enjoy it but... do enjoy it, and enjoy the optimism and opportunity that comes with a brand new semester and definitely don't take it for granted like I did at times.

This post might be a little self indulgent, and I'm complaining about things I really shouldn't be (my "job" is going to be applying to schools and taking a standardized test-- CHILL OUT!) but it's definitely a real and pronounced feeling within me, and thus worth talking about. I'm probably making a bigger deal out of this than I need to be, and all this might subside after a couple days. But all I know is that it's the first day of school and I'm not a part of it and it feels really, really strange.

Outside My Comfort Zone

My dear friend Ashley, who is quite a prolific blogger, has introduced me and many other people to the world of vlogging. Ashley vlogs quite a bit herself and even instituted something called VEDA, in which she vlogs every day in August (Vlog Every Day in August, thus VEDA). She's been very proactive about vlogging, trying to get people to try it and to become a part of that community and that world. Well, I was inspired by one of her most recent vlogs and decided to film one of my own.  The subject matter of my vlog, like Ashley's, are the books that I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read. It's definitely a topic I've thought a great deal about over the years and a list I've been going over in my head for many years. But feel free to share the books that make up your list as well as what you think of mine. But perhaps more importantly I want to hear what you think about the vlog format and if it's something I should try again in the future (though maybe using subjects and topics that aren't quite as unwieldy). I hope you enjoy it!

Letters With Character

A couple months ago (where did the time go!), I saw on Half Deserted Streets a post inspired by another blog (in conjunction with a book) about writing letters to your favorite literary characters and I also could not resist writing a post of my own that centers around letters to my favorite literary characters. After checking out the entries for my two favorite authors, I definitely felt like I needed to do this because... well, they weren't very good and missed the point and what those authors were writing about. To be honest, I think Letters to Dead People did a much better job with those two and I enjoyed it a lot more or at least it didn't make me as angry, especially the Kerouac one. Seriously, go check it out and you'll see it's pretty off base, missing the point of the book and playing into the stupid stereotypes of Kerouac's masterpiece.

OK I'm done with that rant, and now here we go, writing letters to fictional characters.

Dear Frederic Henry,
Look, I know this hurts. There's no denying it doesn't, and the world is a place that hurts people. You even said as much yourself. It's not worth me saying "don't let this affect you" because it's going to. You did say that "the world breaks everyone" but you also have to remember that "afterwords many are stronger at the broken places." The world is a tough place, harsh and unfeeling and often taking away "the very good [and] the very brave" and it's not fair. Yet it also allows us to be stronger after we have been broken, and after that we are better prepared to face the harshness of the world and the next wounding it will present us with.

But I also want to share something that a man with whom you have a great deal in common said- "the world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it." You've experienced the worst the world can throw at you, and there's going to be a tendency to give up on the world because it takes away those who are good so often. But that's not it, that's not all the world is. It's also a place that can be good and thus is worth our pain, our struggling and our fighting on its behalf. I'm not saying what happened didn't hurt and won't continue to hurt and stay with you, but you have to "be strong at the broken places" and remember that it is worth it to continue on and worth it to fight for this world.

[BONUS]

Dear Sal Paradise,
Don't stop. Don't ever stop. The road is hard at times, and will continue to be hard and difficult and weary but it is those difficulties that validate your statement-- "the road is life." Life is hard when one strives to be great, to do something and to make some change or effect upon the universe. Life becomes easy when we stop striving for that and settle into something comfortable and easy. Too often in the modern world, we see people taking that easy way and getting "off the road" as it were. We need people out there who are moving, staying on that hard road to show us how one should do it and that we should strive and quest for things, things that might even seem out of reach. Some might say you're too Romantic or your wasting your time racing across the country, that you should settle down and get a job and contribute to society. But I'm going to tell you that's totally untrue and that the best and greatest thing you can do is to stay out there "on the road" and refuse those shackles that many would impose upon you. We need you out there to remind us of the power of the Romantic and the quest and the journey. In short, we need you to save us from ourselves and what we have created, so please don't stop.

[Postscript-- I really don't feel like I did this justice and I could have gone on/said more/taken more time but I needed to get this out there, put a bow on it and deem it finished. It's not perfect but it is something and it works.]

Making Moves

This is my life right now:

Filling boxes with clothes/books/DVDs

&

Getting things labeled and ready to move to the...

NEW APARTMENT!

Right now we're gradually taking loose stuff over, like food, other kitchen things, some clothes and other miscellaneous household items, which are being thrown into bags and boxes and then transported to the new apartment in anticipation of the big move. This big move will include the furniture (couches, bookshelves, the bed, tables) and the other, larger things (the TV, stereo, microwave, etc etc).

Anyways, posting here will be sporadic at best as I finish up the move and get settled into the new apartment. However, I'll probably continue posting smaller updates (photos, quotes, maybe smaller pieces I write) at my Tumblr. But wish me luck with the move and expect lots of photos of the new apartment once I get everything set up and unpacked!