Things change, plans change, and I try not to be disappointed.  No Vancouver this Spring Break (unless someone hits me up wanting to go, NOW).  Possibly New York for the week, but who knows.  Friday's come and the optimism I had for the week turning out has faded.  Sometimes you have to let five days go as being what you didn't want them to be...

Check out my friend Travis and vote for him on his quest to be cast in the Big Gay Sketch Show on Logo! He's pretty damn funny and could use your support through votes (another popularity contest--weren't these supposed to be done with in high school?). But check it out anyway! :-)

Love, Love me do... Out.com

Check out this compelling article in the recent issue of Out Magazine. It speaks to the speed with which things are not getting done in Washington and compelled me to think about what other solutions or avenues can be pursued outside of party lines to get LGBT issues (and specifically, marriage equality) passed through Washington. Thoughts?

Stumbling out of a bleak Monday, I'm part way through a mediocre Tuesday. It hasn't been so much a factor of direct stress or assault that has made this week already lame, but rather, a bunch of subtle, distant and impending stresses and concerns. Last night I took a look around my room (which is clean for once in a blue moon) and realized that I am going to miss it. I have two months left at the Adams house and then I'm going to be living someplace completely new (if not in LA, elsewhere) and will be shifting my focus away from school to the all-important task of making money. On the phone last night with mom, I realized that materialism is going to become a distant concept, not a practice, in the next few years as I pull myself into being on my own. A commercial for All-State insurance confirmed that as I was dozing off: "during the last depression, people returned to what really mattered--the little things."

Spectator magazine, the post-graduate Critical Studies publication that I do design and layout for has hit the ground running. I'd worked through the first two articles and was working on the third when the video card in the Mac died (or so I've discerned). So Macless and workless in that realm, I'm forcing myself to play catchup on the readings I haven't done for this week and hoping that the Mac comes back to me (or they replace it) without too much trouble. Good thing the Mac is the office's and not my personal computer.

I am getting extremely excited for the road trip Brian and I are taking over Spring Break (see map posted below). Ten days until he arrives in LA (and my BIRTHDAY) and ten and a half until we are on the road. We plan on taking our time going up the coast of California, Oregon and Washington--camping along the way, photographing the coast, shooting Super 8mm, not driving into the Pacific--before hitting Vancouver. Four days in Vancouver (I am elated) and then driving back down (not via the coast, but rather, I-5), taking a night to stop over in Seattle, a night in Portland, and a night in San Francisco before hitting SoCal again. Our original plans amended (what used to entail Banff, Calgary, Yellowstone, Salt Lake City, the Grand Canyon--a giant kidney bean on the West Coast, if you will) I am happy with what we've planned. It is cost-efficient while simultaneously being adventurous enough to be doable.

Be sure to keep in touch during those days, as I will be posting from the road (one of my goals is to keep an extensive journal that will become a chapter in the book I'm writing about my time in LA--just wait until I tell you about that). In addition, we plan on taking bunches of footage, making a couple vlogs which I can post here from strategic points on the journey, and hopefully, once processed, some clips from the Super 8.

For now, I'm checking out to go check in at the office. Tuesday's looking better, Wednesday will be good, Thursday, grand, and Friday, well, you'll just have to see. Loves and hugs (bitches and thugs)!

R

The Great American/Canadian Road Trip 2009

Plans have been finalized for my final Spring Break trip of my undergraduate career! The West Coast is covered and won't know what hit it when Brian and I take our time filming, photographing, camping, hiking, driving, adventuring it... Keep in touch for updates, as an entire collaborative series of posts/musings/misadventure recountings is guaranteed and the possibility (ok, that's another guarantee that Brian will have to help me make good on) of the first vlog series on fusednonsequitur... It's gonna be epic!

A little something put together in the (spare) time I don't have. Collage of people I've run into over the last four years in Los Angeles... Click to enlarge.

Middle school comes flying back...

Refocusing and Not Letting Go

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

The "Marine Layer"

The fog has rolled across LA for the last three evenings, heavier than I've ever seen it before. As I drive through the bare streets, through the amber cones of light that the street lamps cast down upon the hazy white that my eyes cannot penetrate, I feel cozy and eerily anxious simultaneously. It is a New Year and all of the resolutions others declare have been thrust at me like greetings at a particularly crowded party. I have none of my own.

Not because I feel that I'm perfect, nor because I'm lazy. But I feel that a single (or single set of) resolution(s) is a pointless exercise in tradition. Why are you not making new resolutions every day? My life is a constantly fluctuating continuum of change and evolution, destruction, construction, shifting motivations and desires. The only probable form of resolution in the spirit of the New Years Resolution seems to come in the form of constant examination and manipulation of the ideas I see opening up more possibilities for improvement in myself. On a daily basis.

So as I drive along the streets of LA, cut off from the familiar images of this city by a hazy mist, the city I've been in for four years and which has been host to my transition from awkward high school senior to confident and excited impending graduate, I resolve myself to daily resolutions that will lead me from one foggy night to another.

I have been absent for a while, due to overwhelming obligations at the end of semester, as well as transformations occurring in life... A brief update:

I'm finished with three quarters of the finals work that I have do for the semester and will be done on Friday. Another semester down and another semester closer to the next steps and prospects.

I've recently ended an eleven month relationship. I have not been able to process the emotions due to the number of things I have going on with school.

I have also acquired a seasonal job and will be staying in Los Angeles for the holidays; the first time I won't be home for Christmas.

The last few weeks have led to thought on the following topic.

I've found that the more I'm worked, the times when the responsibilities allotted to me are increasing, I find the greatest opportunity to discover calm. This dichotomy--extreme calm amongst deep chaos--feels balanced and acceptable to me. The times when I have too much calm in my life and not enough to do, I find myself internally restless and wondering. When I'm busy beyond belief, I allow myself the opportunity to find focus, beauty and a path through the mess.

I can't say which of these I find most productive overall. When literal calm provokes internal chaos, ideas are evoked and created. Upset allows for renewal and rejuvenation.

On the other hand, when I'm calm and focused internally, I'm able to work furiously on the outside.

I feel that as of now I prefer the latter, but I can see the benefits of allowing for internal upheaval when given the opportunity of thought and reflection without external distraction.

The next few weeks will relieve me of external distraction, so I look forward to reflecting on the last few months and wondering where I will go in the next few...