Consider the following. I have a potentially livable source of income with my techie skills and political connections, and if I can make myself enough of a commodity I think I can keep from having to work for anything i really don't dig, at least in anything exceeding the capacity of a pure technician.

This isn't really what I want to do with my life in the long run, but it works and I enjoy helping good people and causes get a lot out of this old internet.

So that's a way to live which will give me time and space to do other things if I want, or if I want to work more I can probably even save up some money. Let's call that idling. Idling isn't going to cut it, but it's there. Bracket that for now, and let's assume that questions of survival are academic.

What I want -- apart from what I know is possible -- is a much more interesting (difficult) question. (1000 words total)

When I really think about this sort of stuff I always get extremely meta. The pressing questions are really on the level of "how do you want to be?" I'm thinking of Staruday's conversation when Christine asked me if I still considered myself an artist. It reminds me of another time, and it makes me want to be able to say yes to that question, because it has always felt good what I have done that.

I wanna be an artist. I'm not entirely sure of this, but it feels kindof right. To cut to the quick, this is a moral issue. On my friendter profile I've listed my occupation as "Velvet Revolutionary," and if you want to talk about artistic/political crossovers you can't get much better than Vaclav Havel. Without getting egomaniacal, those are huge shoes to fill, but the general model of establishing social, cutural and ethical capital through artistic endeavors and then turning that towards actionable political ends seems generally appealing.

Accepting the moral challenge of "being an artist" is a risk. Nothing ventured nothing gained, this is true, but I'm not sure if this risk is really the one I'm looking for. The world of "art" as currently concieved is a raging maelstrom of insignificace. It is not socially or culturally material. It exists chiefly through largess of the upper-upper class. I am not inclined to climb that ladder.

But then again I'm not inclined towards shimmying up anyone's ladder. It's not in my nature. I've yet to encounter an institution or arena of human endeavor that's much bigger than a few hundred people which I can really admire and respect. Perhaps my standards are unrealistically high, but I'm sick of situations overrun with dumb rich kids and people who get off on ascending one hierarchy or another. I'm sick of wannabe revolutionaries who haven't thought it through, of greedy pirate utopians and associated attention whores.

Maybe this is why I haven't yet gotten much traction here in NYC. I just don't know where it's at, and my attitude is generally pretty poor. But it's fucking depressing. To the best of my knowledge, I've been bouncing around some of the better enclaves of this country for the sorts of things I'm interested in, and I've yet to really find anywhere I feel I fit, or anyone I really think I can follow.

This is hard. I can't do it alone, yet I don't have any contemporary models from which to draw strength, no footsteps to tread in which don't seem antiquated. There's great hope in Robert Owen's example, but that's 200 years old and no one's really picked up on it since then. There's great wisdom in some of the old hippy screeds like, "Enlightenment is getting off your tail and doing something," and "We are this season's people, and if we don't do it, it won't get done," but those are more motivational than directional. "In all fairness there is more than enough to go around," is a pretty cool general ethic, but the devil is still in the details.

It occurs to me that I've given relatively little time and energy to introspection lately, and that I've got to figure out how to make myself happy if I want to have any kind of shot at a good life. I guess that's what I'm trying to chew through here. I'm also lonely. That doesn't help any of this out. I'm in a desparately precarious position, personally. That's another big wordy piece, so I'll leave it at that for the moment.

To sum up, I like telling people I'm an artist, but I don't like the position which art currently occupies in the world. I want to influence the political process, but I don't want to call myself a politician or have to put up with the BS of working through those systems myself. I want to make use of the still breaking tech reformation, but I don't want to be tied into the role of technician.

Where that leaves me, I'm not sure. Still stuck in the middle. I'm not-so-secretly hoping that The Road Trip will shake some things loose, but I'm not counting on it.

Well, there's not much for it but to keep breathing and living and striving and sweating. Life is holy and every moment precious. Time to get vested.

Working out with a huge hangover hurts. I'm getting though the crippling soreness part and starting to feel results, but today was bad shaking. Forearms got real tight off the bat, and I was pooped out after about 45 minutes. Trying to steer my bike around the city afterwards was a struggle. Back hurting; feeling kind of like I had a flu or something. Getting winded, overwhelmed by details. But it's good to keep up with the schedule.

After that and a bizzy meeting at the Tank I went to have tasty cheap BYOB Thai food in the East Villiage with good old Christine. She's getting round to having her masters degree (media studies) from the New School; catching up and life in general made for quality conversation. Another great smart beautiful women who treated me better than I deserved and who I didn't really appreciate, she's got a pediatrician boyfriend now -- who I checked out on friendster; seems quite allright there -- which feels about right. I'm happy that people are happy, and I'll take a good friendly conversation anytime.

Friday Night began slow, but pretty quickly turned into a blur, something usually driven by women, or at least some abstract thereof. I was out with Julia and her friend Karena at a local hipster joint where they let people smoke and have a dance party in spite of some truly inept DJing. I'm not about to go out and hit on anyone, but it's stimulating to be in the pool. When it got to be too crowded and haughty we bailed out and hit up Pete's, which is still solid and friendly and warmly lit and smelling of Czetch sandwiches.

That seemed to be the end of things, with everyone being tired from the week and Karena having a presentation to give to her colleagues at NYU's Cinema Studies on how Meg Ryan's career was entirely based on faking orgasms (literally and figuratively... it's a nice little thesis), so I slid over to the PFC for a cheeseburger. Bumped into Capodice who was looking haggard, and I took the haul back to the Lyric, where things were still running strong and I realized after the burger and fries and yet another beer that it was in fact 4am and I had in fact spent entirely too much money and the only sane thing was to drink a quarter gallong of water and slip warmly below consciousness.

If this is all going to start working, I'm going to need to open it up a little more. I haven't had a good flash of writerly inspiration in quite some time; still waiting for the muse to hit. The mix is getting close though. I have a feeling if I can kep my current momentum and trajectory that I might cross into sweet territory pretty soon here.

It's 4am, and you wonder how it got here, how the last three hours since you looked at a clock flashed by. But it's ok. It's all in good faith.

Still, a lot to tell though. Another time.

Today in the world of IM, a conversation about the issues which plague us all.

I really have to redesign my website, man. I really have to launch vagabender, man. I really have to get some more work done, man.

Actually, what I really have to figure out is why I'm doing what I'm doing. Work, Life, Art, Friends, Politics, Philiosphy, Vice, Places, Stories, Hopes, Dreams, Revelations. It's good though, all this stirring. I think the workout regemin is paying psycological benefits. Stay the course. Ride the butterfly.

Earlier I was bitching about how the GOP used the Republican Noise Machine to get the national debate moved off Bankrupcy, Iraq, Social Security and other bad topics to the current death with dignity (or not) melodrama.

But it seems that this too might be a wedge issue.

This will only be a real gainer if dems can bring the pressure. At this point, they're mostly for it, so in no position to. However, some will be able to bring the question in 2006 debates, "excepting personal and family choices, which do you think is more important in guiding the decisions of a Senator: the Bible or the Constitution?"

The Constitution. Now more than ever.

Oh yeah. The soreness is on, but it's to be expected. Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

Luckily it's a great day out. I'm going to take a ride down to Red Hook to meet up with Drumm and CrunchyWelch. Aaron apparently has a nice lofty space down there. Maybe it will give me ideas.

Update: That's a nice 6 mile ride. Actually, probably more like 7 or 8 since I can't take the BQE which means lots of switchbacks when we get near downtown. An effin' nice loft too.

I don't know what my problem is. There's no shortage of deadlines, projects, fun things to do and things that must get done, and I still can't consistently get out of bed before 11am. This is going to be problematic sooner or later. I can only hope that my newly renewed Parks Dpt. Membership and the relative proximity of the metropolitan rec center will help in solving this.

Update: Oh yeah!
40 minutes in the weight room and then 8 virtual miles (and 300 real calories) burned on the stationary bike. Feels good, though I expect to be pretty sore tomorrow.

My overall physical fitness has improved slightly since I got back here. I ride a lot more and a lot harder, but I think on balance I also consume more bottled bread -- so much good slavic beer in greenpoint, not to mention that large bottles of Pabst are now ubiquitous and 99-cents -- and have a generally poorer diet than I did in California. Greasy chineese; greasy chicken; greasy pizza. I love it all, but it's hardly healthy.

But I think overall the move from relatively inactive to relatively active lifestyle has netted me some gains. My legs are getting taut and my back a little stronger; I figure busting into the weights and having a stationary cycle to burn calories on might be just the thing to get my metabolism (and attitude) adjusted. If I can hit it three days a week between now and the exodus, I should be in pretty good shape for the road, too.

Plus is will be good to get some righteous sweating going on again. In San Francisco, there was twin peaks. Here there can be dizzying sprints up or downtown, but it's hard to keep up with the lights for more than 30 blocks or so, and traffic will inevitably slow you down a little. For pure exertion burning, there's nothing like the recumbent stationary cycle. Rev the human engine. Probe the cardiovascular limits. I'll hit it up this evening and see how it feels.

I had an interesting bit of conversation on Thursday with Kate before getting too blotto. She was saying how a friend has gotten to like reading my website. "But he never posts anything anymore," she said. "I found the old stuff," was the reply.

The old stuff. Yeah. It was a different kind of scene then. There was a time when this was really a diary and the politics and news stuff went somewhere else. Then my life changed, and so did the diary; the politics came in, in a very conventional kind of way, I might add. It was good for a while, and then I got very busy and my life -- for the most part -- became very boring, my thoughts specific and narrow. I worked in a cubicle. I slept in a bare-walled room.

And now things are in play again. The reformation is still coming. The trip is going to be a kind of new level. I wonder about how to look again at mixing the personal, the political, the poetic and the imaginary. A new blend. Simplicy, focus.

I'm not really a great "blogger" in the sense of the form of finding neat things online and sending people links. I'm not a voracious enough consumer of web media for that. I'm more of a diarist, writer and sometime essayist. The setup is taking form. I have some good stories to tell.

It will be more like the old stuff.

St Pat's a couple years ago was the last time I cheated, when I did the greedy thing. So I want to go on record as refusing a svelt 35-year-old woman from Texas with a great friendly dog and huge wonderful tits in similarly compromised circumstances. After much conversation and flirting, I turned down the offer to walk her home. I felt bad about saying no, but good about refusing. It's a new thing to me. Selah.

I'm done with my business and enjoying a Guiness w/espresso shot. Contrary to what you might think if you didn't know my middle name was McCue (and my Grandmother's maiden name was Merryweather), I'm one of those whiskey-loving shower-skipping decendents of the emerald isle. At least on my mother's side.

So cheers. Take a load off and have a pint and tell some stories. That's what the holiday is all about.