Looks like I'll miss out on JetBlue's in-air internet service rollout by a couple of days:

bq.. Starting next week and over the next few months, several American airlines will test Internet service on their planes.

On Tuesday, JetBlue Airways will begin offering a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one aircraft, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer a broader Web experience in the coming months, probably priced at about $10 a flight.

p. In a certain dream of techno-utopian fantasy, I can see the appeal of blasting off around the world -- business class, natch -- and never skipping a beat in terms of social participation. We'd be masters of the universe, each and every one.

Part of my DC meditation is trying to hone in on the distinctions between the old world and the new one, between a world based around corporations that are modeled after the WWII-era Pentagon, and a post-postmodern world modeled on networks. There was maybe something in-between these two -- there in the 80s and 90s -- some intermediary stage marked by first-wave globalization, a world modeled on TV commercials maybe.

Ok. Now I'm rambling. Back to work!

A sort of non-update-update.

I have a bunch of thoughts pinging around that I want to wrestle down, but I was out last night late, mainlining The Fear -- cigar bar; giant foxnews flatscreens; all-asian female staff -- and toiling away in my cubicle today until past 8pm. Running low on juice.

Anyway, here are some topics:

• I got a good response to my post about teh moneyz, which is nice. I have another post (working title: meditations on the 99th percentile) that's been brewing for weeks that's similar in theme but more broader in scope.
• General observations on DC: nice to be back in a diverse community; nice to be around architecture; weird as always to experience the culture around politics.
• Some turgid thoughts and life and death and my slumbering libido; variations on my ongoing of self-love theme.

So at some point here there will be a creative explosion. Not tonight though. I just ate about 3 pounds of Whole Foods takeout and took a much needed hot shower. Bed time for democracy.

There's trouble on every corner
I need a place to hide
the bad things follow us down
I want you by my side

Do we ever really know why
why the bad things come our way?
Do we ever really know
this is where we're headed
this is were we're going?

So, this is a lot darker than I actually feel. It's good music though, and the "do we ever really know" question seems prescient.

After a couple of wild days in the Bay, I'm about to head to the airport for to spend a week in Washington DC, after which I'll come back for a few more days in the office, then back to Westhaven in time for a little Christmas party shindig, then up to Oregon to see the fam and friends, and then flying to St. Louis for New Years with Laura and Frank (and their fetus). I'm hoping to spend a little time in Portland around that flight too, see if I can't make a few connections I missed on my last trip, etc.

Pretty tired from burning the candle at both ends -- trying to finish a project so in the office all weekend, partying for Mission Bikes, raging around the East Bay with the Girth and LGD, chopping up beers with a machete and other feats of immaturity -- and not really looking forward to the red-eye flight. But my mexican doctor got me some sleep drugs, so hopefully that will work out, and I'm trying to be positive about all things. Attitude is everything. Self-love.

I'm really looking forward to staying with my man Sololakidan (and visiting my competitive arch-nemesis) in DC. The on-site w/the clients will hopefully be just the boost in productivity we need, and I'll even be able to squeeze in some visiting time w/Pa and Patti. It should be a good week.

With a little luck and a few more long days, we'll have the year closed out at work, and I can take some more time off, regroup, and get ready for the next level.

As the end of the year approaches and various spreadsheets are compiled, I am increasingly forced to face the uncomfortable reality that unless something changes I will soon cease to be legitimately bohemian in economic terms. Affluence awaits. While I'm sure this is the sort of thing that parents love, and people less fortunate hate to hear me bitch about, it actually does provoke a significant amount of anxiety for me. Hence the blogging.

Clearly, I don't buy into conventional American moires about what's polite to discuss, and I frequently carry on about religion, politics, sex, drugs, and all sorts of other topics that people tend to avoid in polite company. However, aside from the details of my own romantic life, money is probably the thing I'm most trepidatious talking about. Seems like a good way to give offense and/or invite ridicule. Nevertheless, it's on my mind and I feel like getting it out in the open, so here goes.

If I Had Money I'd Buy A New BMX
I grew up, for a number of reasons, with a certain amount of classism, although I wasn't too conscious of this until I went to NYU. There was always some vague resentment towards "rich kids" and a general anti-capitalist attitude (some of which still persists), but it wasn't until I got up-close to the children of idle wealth that I realized how much it set me off.

Part of this is justifiably utilitarian -- waste is bad and a lot of people are unreasonably extravagant -- but there's a difference between inequality/decadence and being financially successful (c.f. Warren Buffet). I've come to see Classism as no different at heart than any other -ism: a prejudice; something to be overcome.

Another politics post, this time to note something techy about how campaigns use email. Previously, I'd said mean things about Team Obama for sending out a message "from a supporter" to a much wider subset of their email list. Today, the Dodd campaign used another SpamKing tactic, faking an apparent "mistake email" as a gimmick to get people to donate.

This stuff may work in bringing in the dough, but I really hate it. Creating the illusion of peer-to-peer contact (in Obamas case) or of an unfiltered "behind the scenes" look into a campaign (as Dodd's email does) undermines the most important virtuous things I like to think teh internets can bring to a Democracy.

You know, people want real connections, they want to know what's really going on, and instead of actually engaging, these tactics prey on that desire. They're false in very important ways, and they undermine the hope that such things as an egalitarian and transparent society are really possible, even in a networked era.

It calls to mind this quote from George Meyer (the most influential of all the Simpsons writers) in a Believer interview:

I really do hope the political press collapses under its own corpulence this election cycle. The DC corps a glorified highschool cafeteria, and it's problematic for a democracy. Papers and networks and journalists will be around forever, but the current configuration simply shouldn't persist. Recent evidence:

On the topic of "the Good Old Days," I have some semi-strong feelings. I'm as dubious of nostalgia as the next guy, and while I love the process of maturation, I fear and loathe the narrative of "getting old." I have all sorts of fun memories of more free, innocent, wild and irresponsible times. Good times. Fun. Naturally given a more regularized, orderly, and subdued existence memories of pure fun are attractive, but those aren't really what I'd call "the Good Old Days."

What I look back on with envy are the times in my life when I really knew what I wanted, and felt like I was getting it, in both the big and little pictures -- times when it could be reasonably argued that I was, indeed, "living the dream." That's what I'm talking about.

My early 21st-Century dreams may have been unrealistic, hazy, naive and fraught with delusions of grandeur, they were still pretty awesome, and to be perfectly honest I don't feel like my dreams were wrong; I feel as though I failed in bringing them to reality. In spite of my (best?) efforts things didn't work out, and in a series of dark skirmishes over 2003-04 the purest hopes I can go on record as ever possessing were all put to rest.

It can and has been said that I just need to get over it, and in some ways I have, but this is my history. It colors everything I do. It is why I am the man I am. I'm not trying to throw a pity party -- objectively I know I'm lucky, and doing quite well -- but I do wonder why, when talking with my two best friends and finally getting down to a level, I don't have much positive to say for myself.

Well, I'm back in the HC. I cracked my laptop exactly once over the holidays, and wrote in my paper journal (the blog for an audience of one, at least until I'm dead) twice. That's what I call vacation, people!

As often happens when you get a weekend after many days of straight work, I really enjoyed having some time off. Contrasts.

It was especially nice to visit so many fine folks I haven't seen in some time. Big FriendsGiving was a huge success, both in terms of feasting and the follow-on living room dancefloor / porch hangout extravaganza. Made me realized I haven't been to a bonafide house party since we hosted the Country Soul Carnival Cruise up here.

I once again felt mad love for Portland, which reminds me a lot of good old post-9/11 North Brooklyn, before the third wave of gentrification really got rolling, and I got some inspiration for my Westhaven Christmas Talent Show performance piece. I think it'll be a good one in the old Axiom pep-talk style. My working title is "The First Love Is Self Love," which was a fortune cookie I got once, and it's true both with and without the "in bed" suffix.

Greater rhapsodies are coming, but unfortunately I have to take off my po' boho pomo mofo hat and get back to work.

This song is my current inner sound-track: Uptight Jet (the Kleptones).

Made it away from work and to the Euge. Tomorrow me and LGD will head up to Portland for a weekend of Thanksgiving and other festivities. Should be fun.

I'm very much looking forward to four whole days with no work. It seems like too few!

The drive up had some nice vistas, and listening to music all the way on my newly-replaced car stereo got me thinking nostalgic and bohemian. It's been an interesting decade since I left home to make my way in the world. I've done a lot of things, a lot of good things, fun things, growing things, maybe even one or two important things, yet it's unclear what they add up to or where this is all headed.

I certainly feel lucky to have had the life I've had, but I also feel this pressure to make it count, to put together the pieces of the puzzle. I worry that I'm going to get more and more tired and bland and "meh" forever, that it's all downhill from here, that I'm burned out, all dead inside, or just too jaded and self-conscious to really swim in the river of life anymore. Swirling down in a whirl of ennui and anomie and other vowel-strewn monikers for running low on moxie.

It's a dark future, the neurotic. Hopefully that's not what's going to happen. The best way I know to get through this mess is to share it with people, to try and get caught up in the world, to get strong and rested and healthy, to have fun and make art and go to parties, to be open and let the universe really get at my inner workings. That takes some courage, but hopefully I'm up for it.