It's Friday; I'm having a party tonight at Julia's pad. I'm blowing deadlines trying ot get MfA's new site online. Too many moving parts and it's making me angry and frustrated in addition to stressed out and tired. Hopefully I can blow off some steam tonight. I haven't been sleeping well. Couch+Cable TV is a bad combo for me.

This city feels like home to me. It's different from home home -- which is still home in a peaceful shelter sort of way -- but here I feel most in my element. The buzz, the thrum, the vibe, the very Public nature of everything; I love New York. I wish the world were peacuful again and I could come here free of obligations, to rage around and be drunk and make love and art for years and years. I wish the world were like New York; diverse, energetic, optimistic, full of wealth and promise and baubles from the future.

There's no racial tension here. Well, compared to elsewhere, not much. I don't know if it's something that changes in my demeanor when I come here or if the air really is that different, but from the second I stepped off the plane, I've been surrounded by people who are different from me and I haven't felt singled out or self-conscious once. It's the density; it doesn't allow for segregation. That's what's so tragic about the mass-gentrification of Manhattan; while you'll still see all sorts all over -- witness the explosion of young homosexuals of color in the West village -- it takes a certain kind to live on that island now. That changes things once you step off the street.

Still, there's a massive difference in the degrees of separation between the various hoods of Manhattan and Brooklyn compared to the segmentation (racial, social and class-based) you get elsewhere. There's so much human energy directed at New York, it's just not possible for things to be very separated for very long before they're pushed together and mixed up again.

And good god the people are beautiful. Part of it is cosmetic, yeah; but a big part of it is confidence, purpose, drive. The whole deal, you know. This place is changing (or continuing to change, rather), but it still seems to be the place, you know? The place attracts the people, and the people make the place.

I still want to travel. I want to see more of the world, more of America even, but I'm ready to consider the notion that this is the spot to make my play.

Crazy ol' pa sends in some photos from the past. Good ones, I think:

For anyone who wondered what I looked like back in the days of my long lion-like locks:

A bit later on in my punk rocker days with buddies:

I'm 25 today, a full adult by numerical reconing, and I'm alive and in Brooklyn. The 7am train from JFK into the city is like a schoolbus. The colors -- brick walls, yellow traffic signal boxes, leafy green trees -- make me feel at home. New York City looks beautiful this morning.

I'm heading to NYC tonight for 10 days. Back in the Bay on the 19th. I'm having a birthday party while I'm there, so if you wanna come on out and live it up on Friday, drop me a line. Otherwise I'll be working outta the Brooklyn office and trying to have lunch with important people and people who are important to me.

I know I need to fix some design bugs on the site. I'll get to it real soon now, along with everything else I have on my list; like taking a shower.

Koenig; dirty unshaven hippy with a broken website. Oh man.

It was a monkey weekend. I'm pretty exhausted. We dropped Mark off at the Greyhound at 1:00 and I walked away through the shell that is Downtown Oakland on a Sunday, following an insane old black man with a bushy white bear to the BART, thinking about why we do what we do and what we want out of this life.

It was good to take real time off of work. For the first time since my Christmas vacation I tuned out the news, kicked my feet up, left my email alone -- 50 non-spam messages, still unread -- and took a load off. It was good to drop into a different way of being for a while, to check in with my peers in the civilian world.

It was also somewhat uncomfortable. Lots of echoes of last summer, which wasn't a totally fun time in Monkey Land. Not the girl stuff -- that was actually a high point -- but with all the confusion and lack of effective communication.

It gives me a little bit of guilt, to sense how things aren't as together as they used to be, to know that my distance from everyone and everything doesn't help, to intuit that there's still something there in that group, between my closest and oldest friends, but that it's hazy and worn. I feel like if I made it a focus for me, great things might happen there. Great small things full of fun and laughter.

The essence is there. It may not be as terribly ambitious as my current bag, but it feels somewhat more attainable. I got to be where I am by wanting to get over my feelings of powerlessness at the course of world events, and because I want to have that bright future. I now wonder how to have my cake and eat it too: how to continue my grand ambitions to help bring about national and global change, while still having the free capital (financial, social, intellectual, temporal) to go about constructing a more ideal locality.

Kierkegard and Dewey on my mind; social networks and the new emergent utopia. That's the long-lense world view, and in my head I try to balance it against all the ugly wrong shit (and just plain depressing rot and blockage) that's really out there. Locally/personally? I really don't know. It's one experiment after another.

I should let myself feel badass more often. Really let it rip. Oh pressure drop, yeah pressure drop, oh pressure droppin' down on me. This week is going to be a c-r-u-n-c-h.

See you in the trenches.

My MfA comrade Jason Woliner is at it again, pushing that f'ing envelope. The Passion of Christ: I Just Can't Get Enough! My favorite moment is Franz with the, "and they crucified him!" Pass it on if you like.

So anyone who's seeing a bunch of messed-up fonts and shit, tell me what broswer (including version if you can figure it out) and operating system you use. Also, take a look at this alternative view, which is plain vanilla, but might work better. Let me know if it looks more correct.

I'll try to do some tweaking this week to get it right.