Couldn't sleep last night. Partly because I got all het up on Saturday and split a bunch of wood giving me a sore back, partly because I am — in the words of Phife Dog — <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHvmY5n1QcQ">stressed out more than anyone could ever be, and partly because the air mattress in Zacker's front room has a slow leak and deflates overnight, waking me back up at 3:30am for round two of the toss'n'turn.

But beyond the work-stress, familiar ghost that it is, there was something else flickering through my mind and keeping me awake, something born of contemplating the move away from Westhaven and reading The Savage Detectives and wondering anew about love. I started thinking back to the hot heady Summer of 2001, which is nine years ago. What it felt like to be a free man in Brooklyn, artistic pretensions and honest poverty and beautiful people every which way you looked. Potential unlimited. We did theater in backyards and hit up illegal dance parties in warehouse basements. It wasn't even all that early, but it was before things are like they are now. And I was young. Innocent even.

It started me thinking about what the hell I've done with my life, how it all happened. Obviously there's 9/11, and probably even more importantly all the shit that came after. Falling in love as war unfolded, hearbroken on the Dean Campaign with the summer of the hassle, some spiritual cleansing, the long march with Music for America, Vagabender, back to Brooklyn and finally ejecting to The HC.

More recent California history is I marinated in the woods for a year or so while starting a bidness with some cool dudes, learned a bit about being be my own man, didn't have sex for a long time, and ended up employing 15 people, traveling more than I ever did when I lived in a metropolis, and through a mix of talent, will and happenstance, standing on the precipice of being some sort of successful professional.

Which isn't really where I thought I would be. I feel like I should be hiding out in Uruguay, or something. That's the Bolaño talking, but it feels that way. My default idea of growing up was some sort of weird offbeat bohemia. Being able to cut it in the square world is unexpected.

Anyway, I'm throwing down all these links because that's sort of what my night was like. Thinking back over all these things I've done, the feelings I've felt, the sunrises and sunsets, the feeling like I'm someone special and at the same just another face in the crowd. Wondering where this current iteration is leading.

I'm not suggesting I'm worthy of any biography other than my own little digital diary, but it's been if anything an improbable life. What happens next is really anyone's guess.