May 2009 through October 2009

Much as I hate leaving a job undone, I hate doing tedious, uninteresting work to no end even more.  I'm glad this '20' project got me writing again, but it's over, and I've bigger fish to fry now.  NaNoWriMo!

Long story short for those 6 months:

• Finished school term
• Road trip to Vancouver with Nicole
• Nicole moved in with me
  
• Found positions in Albuquerque through AmeriCorps
• Moved to Albuquerque
• New Orleans for a week for orientation
• Taking Calculus in Albuquerque
• Job is frustrating
• Calculus is difficult without having taken Trig
  
• Uncertain about future, etc

And here I am!

FIN

April 2009 - grind despite the great

It's incredible how your focus narrows when you're establishing a routine.  Going back to school like I was with the Architecture classes at Pierce, I was so involved in the projects and class meetings and deadlines and so caught up in the speed of it all.  Looking back on that time, my months were dense with individual events, whereas classes seem like the backdrop now that they should have been at the time.

Example:

In April, I spent a week in Santa Cruz over my spring break, then Nicole came down for Easter, which we had with her family at the Marriott.  We binged ourselves on tiny confections and baked goods, for the dessert smorgasbord kept changing colors and shapes, and we had to try them all.  Before Easter, of course, came Passover though.  We had a seder with Lara and Sam and everyone at our apartment - the most riotous and unorthodox seder ever (not one, but two organs on the plate) - and then another seder with my family at their house. 

Then I met with Mike to try to put organize a community engagement initiative with our fellow Angelenos - UBLA (Unified for a Better LA).  We had opportunities lining up through the rest of the month and beyond to get people involved.  Gio's birthday happened, as did Lily's and my dad's.  I met with Kyle's dad, talking about his work with the Santa Susanna Mountain Preservation Association.  I drove to Monterey Park to buy snake plants from a nice young mother type, and then the next week to Riverside to drop off homebrew entries for my brother.

* * * * *

In April, in school, I had twenty-five class meetings, two projects, and one field trip.

* * * * *

At the time though, school probably took up a lot more of my mind.  Perspective, right?

Tired...

I should say here that I tire of rehashing the past.  Particularly with NaNoWriMo approaching rapidly along with the deadlines of my future's applications, I look forward more than backward.  But I will complete this task of twenty I have assigned myself, because facets of the my future are to be found in the finish.

March 2009 - up and down

My March calendar reads like a ping pong game played across latitude lines.  Nicole in LA, Matt in Santa Cruz, Nicole in LA, Matt in Santa Cruz, etc.  That's a bit of a theme for the ensuing few months, but I think it was at its most regular in March.  A pretty good rally, I'd say.

Sam and I were at our all time peak of banjo interest, so we got acrylic nails on our picking' hands.  That was an interesting new sensation.  I still wish I had gotten them painted too, but considering the benefits were pretty marginal, I don't think I'll give it another chance.  Besides, they really got in the way of climbing.

One break in the ping pong game was meeting halfway for a night of camping on the central coast.  We slept out there on a cold night, one of the last of the winter, and then drove a bit to see elephant seals - so fat! - and then head down to LA for the remaining bit of time she had.  It was her spring break.  Mine would come in April.

Right at the end of the month, another era began.  Foxman and I no longer were living alone in our apartment.  His girlfriend, Jessi, moved in on the 31st, having come all the way from Milwaukee to live with the man.

February 2009 - to college and the capital

February 9th saw the first day of a new semester at Pierce College, where I was taking some courses…again.  Between Pierce and Valley, I was taking Environmental Design 101, Introduction to Architecture, Freehand Drawing I, and Architectural Drawing (AutoCAD) I.  My first concrete steps toward Architecture education.

February 14th saw the usual holiday.  I went to Santa Cruz to be with a certain someone for it.  We also did something really romantic that visit - go to Sacramento and lobby for marriage rights for queer folk.  It rained like mad, we stayed with Adam and Charlsie, and we both got quite soaked before and after our meetings with legislators.  I met my representative, Julia Brownley, who is quite the advocate apparently.  Not exactly the hardest sell I ever had to make, but it was a fascinating day at any rate.  Nothing like a California assemblyman yelling to a theatre full of queer folk and their allies, "Oh, let's just turn out the lights and have a big make out session!"  Sorry, Mr. Ammiano, I may not have captured your exact wording - I'm sure your phrasing was more colorful. 

Most of February was unremarkable though, getting used to the grind of classes and studying as well as the oddities of art and studio design based courses.  Top it all off on the 28th by my Uncle Bob turning a ripe 60 years old.  I think he's been 60 for years though, and probably will never age past that.

January 2009 - east by northeast by north

After recovering from New Years on the 1st, I flew to New York City on the 2nd.  This was a 3 day stopover on my way to Israel for my birthright trip.  I met Dani there and we stayed with his family on Long Island and then with Danny Gurman in the East Village.

It was pleasantly cold and there was snow on the ground in places.  I spent some time walking in the park and wandering up and down 5th Ave.  Then Danny led us into a subterranean sake bar, where I had coaxed Becky into meeting us, and then we ventured upstairs on another block to a soviet themed drinking establishment.  The next day it was to Newark early in the morning to catch our plane to the Holy Land.

That trip felt like at least a month on its own, so there really is no way to go into details.  We bussed around, camped in the desert, drank drank drank, danced danced, hiked hiked hiked, and were constantly amused and in awe of our guide, Jared.  This was all during the most recent war in Gaza.  The closest we got to any missiles was a lone rogue coming out of Syria from the North, some 15 miles from where we were that day.  So no worries, really.  Alright, I'm still totally giddy that I was within 15 miles of an actual Middle-Eastern missile attack.

Then it was back to Newark, then to Los Angeles.  The flight home was incredible.  From New Jersey to the Sierra Nevadas, the entire country was coated in thick white frosting.  I remember staring out my window the entire flight, though I'm sure I passed in and out of consciousness considering that was still a continuation of the day before for me.

The following weekend it was time to go visit Nicole in Santa Cruz, and then to Berkeley for Burnlesque, a sexy little burner party in downtown Oakland with Mr. Mann and Ms. Bouncy.  Eventually I would stay home for longer than a week, I promise.  It started in February.

December 2008 - typical socal winter wonderland

With the beginning of December, two things became official - Nicole and me, and Foxman and me.  One I was kissing a lot and the other I was moving in with.

My dad and I ran up to the Ranch to do so some upkeep on the remnants of our past lives we keep up there.  I did find a lot of goodies in the trailer though, goodies with which to fill my new apartment.  Sarah came into town and she and Gio and I went down to the Grove to hang out and see Milk, a perfect Christmas time story. 

Then it was all art galleries in Venice, rock climbing, sailing with Uncle Bob, going out to see the Nutcracker at the Music Center, Chanukah singalongs, Nicole in Hawaii, and caroling around the neighborhood with a mug of cocoa (spiked graciously, thanks to Shoghi's heavy hand).

When Nicole got back we launched immediately into a road trip that took us from the leaky palms of LA to the frozen boulders of Joshua Tree National Park and then up through the Sierras and down to her new home in Santa Cruz.  We moved in most of her belongings and slept on a bed made of an aggregation of couch cushions in the middle of her new bedroom.

We ended up back in LA, at Byran's loft downtown, for New Years, which involved a giant red eye and the phrase "HYPNOBELLY" painted on my abdomen, fire spinning on the roof, some very drunk people, sushi by Sam, some very high people, and just generally a lot of 'very' things going on.  And friends, good friends too.

November 2008 - easy living and new beginnings

Obama!  Yay!  Prop 8!  Booooo!  The first week of November was spent campaigning, voting, protesting, and escaping the fires burning in Sylmar.  A very dramatic time.  We all survived, and Lara's marriage even survived ultimately, thanks to (and, in a way, despite) the stupid, stupid court decision in spring '09.

Just before Halloween I had the first guitar lesson of my adult life.  I went in for finger picking lessons but ended up being paired with a jazz player.  It didn't really phase me since I wanted to learn more of everything, so in November I was taking my first steps into the world of jazz guitar.

Lara and Sam took me to my first Derby Dolls bout, a sporting event that hardly gets its due in the mainstream, though, if it ever did, it might just collapse entirely.  I played a gig with Nate at Cinema Bar in Culver City.  It was interesting.  I mostly just remember my water bottle full of gin and tonic, and being on the stage longer than I was comfortable.  Then I stayed the night at Lily's to comfort Nicole, and my car got towed.  In retrospect, I could argue that to be the most expensive first date ever.  But I learned my lesson - Los Angeles is serious about its anti-gridlock parking zones.

Nicole and I spent more time together in the ensuing weeks, eventually beginning something bigger than guitar lessons or even Derby Dolls.

For the bulk of November I was cradled in the lap of luxury at Chez Krawiec.  His parents had asked me to house sit for them again, looking out for Wiley and such.  I never have a problem doing so considering their house is spacious and gorgeous with views from atop a hill.  Add to that a spa bath and always generous compensation (for the imposition of living richly for three weeks, I suppose), and they had themselves a house sitter.  Wiley and I had some arguments about just when and how he wanted to play, but beyond that it was a flawless experience as always.

At my urging, Foxman and I found a beautiful, classic apartment just off the Blvd in Tarzana.  Staying in the Valley wasn't my first choice, but given my income (state unemployment checks) and his commute, it made sense.  Cathedral ceilings, hardwood floors, space space space, a huge deck and brand new kitchen appliances drew us in.  We were due to officially move in Dec 1, but we made it a few days early for the sake of harnessing the weekend.  I did something I never thought I would do: sign a lease for a Los Angeles apartment.

October 2008 - every weekend an adventure

Weekend the first:  
"Basic skills" tests not generally causing my heart to palpitate, I was too relaxed the morning of the CBEST and almost missed the strictly enforced start time.  The test itself was the piece of cake I had ordered, though I didn't chew it enough before swallowing.  The essay prompts were infantile - "tell a story of a success in difficult circumstances" - but I realized too late that perhaps I shouldn't treat them as such.  Sitting there, at a desk in my old high school, taking a test containing questions more appropriate for elementary school, I wondered then how I could inflict that 'education' on other people, even if they were just children still.

That night, I made a killer picnic dinner and Megan and Nate and I went to the Iron and Wine and Swell Season concert at the Greek Theatre.  It was brilliant!

Weekend number two:
Nicole and I went to the beach in Hermosa and bonded in a completely nonsexual fashion, as she was still with Guy-who-does-yoga-and-refuses-to-speak-to-her-now.  Cold night, but warm thoughts. 

Weekend III:
People had somehow convinced me to attend SoCal DeCom, a mid-sized(?) burner party about eighty miles east of San Diego, in the desert, just above the Mexican border.  I got intoxicated, stayed up most of the night, couldn't sleep during the day because of the heat, went shooting with a bunch of burners who really like their guns, went on little walks, bonded more with Nicole, saw a jackrabbit or two, and wandered off alone the second night there because it felt like the right thing to do.

Possibly best of all, on the second morning, I walked up a nearby hill as the sun was rising, found a circular pit full of animal bones, some charred, some clean, and then I took off some clothes and lay down on the cold, hard dirt, and napped as the world warmed up around me. 

The Fourth Weekend:
Nothing noteworthy apparently.  Must have slept through the whole darn thing. 

Halloween:
Not a proper weekend, it being a Friday and all, but it's worth mentioning that my sister and I threw a joint party full of pumpkins, food, punch, dry ice, and hot tubbing.  Fun had by all!

September 2008 - fall of expectations

I moved back into my parent's house just before Labor Day.  My immediate plan was to take the CBEST so that I might work as a substitute teacher for the next god-knows-how-long until everything else came into focus.  I registered for the test, looked at the study materials, laughed a hearty chuckle, and forgot about it all until the test date.

I also registered for my Birthright Israel trip, the first step in a process that would soon plop me down in the Holy-Landiest of Holy Lands.  I volunteered with Rebecca to read books to kids in a downtown elementary school, through a very fluffy organization called Reading to Kids.  I would have to be more engaged in the community if I was to be worth my salt on any meter.

Mostly, in September, I just tried to maintain, or rebuild, some of the motivation and independence I had felt in SLO.  Its hard to feel independent when you're living at your parent's place though, isn't it?  I began laying the groundwork to improve... like I do.

August 2008 - communication breakdown

August was my second month in SLO, trying to live he writerly lifestyle I had so long dreamt about.  In the end, that's exactly what I was living, without the writing.  It started with increasingly decadent and time-consuming meals.  Then I stagnated altogether, and thought I had to read more to become more inspired.  Then I realized I had never seen the Mad Max movies, and hadn't been eating enough pizza, or experimenting with enough ice cream and espresso combinations.  It was a slippery slope from there.

I spent more time hanging out with Jeremy and Erica and company, trying to not feel so isolated.  I suppose I have to admit the loneliness was getting to me.  There were parties, bike rides, wine tastings, nights out - all the usual items of a social life, restricted basically to two people.  We celebrated the End of the World on the evening CERN's new Large Hadron Collidor was turned on for the first time.  I went back to LA to bid farewell to Tara, as she left for San Diego to start a grad program.  Before I knew it, my SLO time was quickly running out, and I was due to be back in LA at the end of the month.  Jenny needed her apartment back and I had to move on to the next great experiment...the same one I had left 2 months prior.  Nothing.

But my last night in town was a fantastic one.  Jeremy and I rode the 10 miles to the beach and back, and then drank tawny port and ate bleu cheese while watching the Animation Show for the rest of the night.  I got very little sleep, woke up early to a real thunderstorm, threw my packed bags and boxes in the car, and made my last drive home.  Until the next time I had to run away from Los Angeles.  It happens frequently.

July 2008 - the SLO life

I moved into my new digs on the 2nd of the month.  I brought clothes, guitar, a couple of microphones, my computer, all my old writings, and not much else.  The first day I was there I went grocery shopping at the bottom of the hill at the organic food market, New Frontiers, and made sure to pick up a pack of cigarettes, a handle of gin, several small bottles of tonic, and a sackful of limes.  My mission, like my drink of choice, was clear.

Immediately upon arriving I had several ideas for what to do with projects I was working on.  I woke up, leisurely made breakfast, played guitar, got down to writing, had a drink, leisurely made dinner, read for a bit, went for a walk or a bike ride, etc.  Not that I stuck to a routine or anything.  Such a thing would have reeked of work and discipline.  Those were the typical elements of any given day, and they came and went as they pleased.

I kept a journal of my work.  Each night I would record what I had worked on that day, how much I had accomplished, and remember to myself any ideas I might have had about new projects or how to advance current ones.  I can see from my record keeping that in my first week there I wrote about 9,000 words over 3 projects.  I also had a nice day at the beach on the 4th of July, which ended with fireworks at a parent's beach house in Pismo.

Mid-month I was back in LA visiting my grandma and taking care of unemployment business, but after less than a week of that I ran straight back north and go to writing again.  I hosted my first couchsurfer, Olly, from England but making his way home from Korea at the time.  Before the end of the month I had started a new project, completed an old one, and made good headway on a couple in between.

Of course, by then I had discovered the television and Asimov's Foundation novels, so there days when I simply cooked, ate, read, watched a movie, talked to a friend, drank, smoked, and went right back to bed, sometimes without ever having put on real pants.  I was a writer!  I just had to write more...

June 2008 - to wed and to write

June technically started while I was in Berlin.  I know this because I had my birthday there.  But the new month didn't really feel new until I got back home and joined in the preparations for Lara and Sam's wedding.

I got home on the 5th and went right to work for them.  We rented the sound system and helped organize the outdoor space at their friend's house where they were having the ceremony and reception.  I must have driven over a hundred miles in my first three days back in town, which, for LA, isn't actually saying too much.  The wedding was great.  I played emcee, everybody danced, and the inner circle ended up at Denny's afterward, as happens with any great party, wedding or otherwise.

Then I had three weeks of detoxification, of re-acclimation, of speaking and hearing nothing but English and knowing that nothing would change that fact any time soon.  But now, comfortably collecting unemployment, it was time to enact part B of my post-hospital-job plan: move somewhere cheap and write write write.

I looked into Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.  I looked into Portland, OR.  I looked into a boat in Coos Bay, OR.  I looked into Salt Lake City, UT.  Then I looked at the fine print on my unemployment insurance terms.  Then I started looking in California, because that's where I had to stay to keep collecting checks.

My brother's girlfriend (now fiancee), Jenny, kept her apartment in San Luis Obispo during the summers when she was back in LA working in a law office.  The rent was steep but the lease was renewed annually and she didn't want to lose it.  I couldn't have afforded to live there, but we came to an agreement where I would pay her half the rent for the remaining two months of summer so I could stay up there and focus on writing without distraction.


The plan seemed fit and fortuitous.  I knew only two people in SLO, just enough to ensure company when I needed it, but not enough to impose upon my work.  I could move in July 1.

May 2008 - mr. evans goes to europe

I had limited time from the start, unfortunately, but I knew if I postponed this trip to sometime more convenient, it would conveniently never happen.  On April 29th I entered Los Angeles International Airport and did not breathe open air again until reaching Toronto's Pearson International.  Not Europe yet, but I reckoned I was passing over Canada one way or the other so I might as well stop by and visit some friends.

Myia met me at the airport and we took buses and trolleys to her Spadina Avenue apartment.  She and her partner Mike live in this incredible upstairs apartment on a major thoroughfare in a neighborhood I somehow remember being Chinatown and Kensington Market at the same time.  In fact, I just discovered you can see a photo taken from just a few doors down from theirs on Wikipedia.  We gathered up all sorts of old friends from the Vancouver days and cooked and dined and drank.  Mike played for us a rare album, a 70's rock opera based on the War of the Worlds.  I got drenched in the heaviest rain I'd ever even imagined, beneath a daytime sky blacker than I'd thought possible.  I stayed some at Myia and Mike's, some at Sarah and Marta's, and then Myia and I caught a train (moments after my soaking) to Montreal.

Mr. Foxman met us in Montreal.  Adam and I stayed at a hostel the first few nights, while Myia stayed at a friend's.  We bought wine and cheese and bread and hiked the Mont Royale, from which the city derives its name, but not before killing a couple of hours in the playground at the base of the hill.  Myia's friends Etienne and Virpi were incredible part-time tour-guides.  They took us to an avant-garde art show as well as the greatest and most fancy vegan Thai restaurant on this earth.  Remember the world famous appetizer!

Time ran out for us there all too soon.  Foxman found a plane to his next stop - Colorado, I believe - and I found a bus to Burlington, Vermont from where I would hop to New York City's JFK Airport and then to Dublin, Eire.  Then began a trip much too dense to attend to in this much detail.  Just know I rambled:

• from Dublin, where I discovered a man can live at least a day on Guiness alone,
• to Killarney, where I played guitar with Poppa Goodtimes on the roof of a pub,
• to Belfast, where I took a day trip with a pretty German girl,
• to Edinburgh, where I nearly got stuck on an island in the middle of the Firth of Forth,
• to London, where Colin, a 36 year-old gutter punk lectured me about those who were tools of society and those who weren't,
• to Paris, where I drank at least two bottles of wine a day and sneaked on and off the Metro,
• to Amsterdam, where I stayed with Sarah and Marta in their acquaintance's canal-adjacent apartment,
• to Berlin, where I visited with two new friends a concentration camp just north of the city,
• to Nürnberg, where I cemented my addiction to wurst, lager, and sauerkraut, 
• to Düsseldorf, where I had one great night playing the Wii with the beautiful Catherine LeBlanc,
• to Los Angeles, where I seem to inevitably end up despite myself, at times.
  

I would like to have stayed longer in Europe had it not been for the big event - Lara Carina Spade was to marry Samantha Lemke on the 06-07-08.

April 2008 - spring renewal

Back in California, I was restless still.  A few days after returning from BC I set about on a drive to visit friends north of me.  Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Sacramento - I guess just about every California town that begins with 'S'.  I drove through Big Sur with my windows down, and took my time doing so.  The fresh pacific air is shielded here from the filth produced on the mainland, and I relished my privilege place along PCH between the shore and the cliff.

I had lunch with Nicole in Santa Cruz, unaware that in less than a year we would fall in love with each other.  In San Francisco, as I was leaving Alex's apartment after a late night of bar hopping with him, Jess, and Evan, a rabbi invited me to his home for sabbath lunch.  I had to decline, of course, for I had places to be.  I was due in Sacramento for a night of drinking with Adam.  Then, on Sunday, it was back home for me.  Back home again.  I was expecting company soon.

Mel was coming into town later that week, and I had been making an effort to become more involved with the CouchSurfing scene, ramping up for my trip to Europe.  I met a girl who worked as a photographer at Disneyland at a CS ArtWalk gathering on Thursday that offered to get Mel and me into the park for free on Friday.  So that's exactly what we did on Friday, straight from the airport.  Then we went to another CS event, a pancake breakfast, on Sunday morning.  She stayed with me for a few more days and then went camping with Kyle.

Passover came and went with relative insignificance.  All I really remember between Mel leaving and April 29 is researching, packing, stressing, budgeting, going to the DMV, and waking up late in the day.  I just remember being excited for my first trip to another continent.  I left for Toronto, the first stop on my trip, on April 29, but that whole venture is basically May material.

March 2008 - moneymoneymoney

This was the month that my contract at the hospital job came to an end.  As is common with the end of fancy corporate jobs, this meant a lot of money would soon be coming my way.  I explained a bit about this in another entry, so I'll swerve away from being too Jewish and just leave it by saying I received six checks this month, each of them larger than a typical paycheck - some factors larger.

With my new found fortune and ever expanding leisure time, what was I do?  By the end of my last week working at the mental health clinic just above downtown, I was more than ready for a change of scenery.  My home away from home beckoned me.  G and I ran away to the north, to old Vancouver and Victoria.  We stayed with Kristina at her historic downtown apartment in Vancouver, and then with Sarah at her middle-aged duplex in residential Victoria.  It was deliciously cold up there, and sumptuously moist.  The rain, interspersed with moments of snow and moments of drought, refreshed me inside and out as it always does.

Sarah and her friends took us out to a Jamaican restaurant that actually had vegetarian items being jerked alongside the pork and chicken.  G bought a fabulous coat at a thrift shop on a bargain, albeit at a price still far beyond her means.  The ride back to the airport was decorated with daffodils, just popping into season in fields beside the highway.  We flew into Seattle, then into LA, a truncated week that felt even shorter upon our return.  Back to the lions, back to the relentless sun.

20.

I have a blog. You're looking at it. It's been almost 20 months since its last update. I'm not making any apologies, for I have no readers. Instead I'm using this as an opportunity to attempt to remember the past 20 months of my life.

Each day for the next 20, I will remember on this blog the events of a month of my life beginning with March 2008, moving forward to October 2009. Nobody will read them, but I will know myself better for the writing.

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20.