Monthly Archives: December 2006

Roaming

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I packed a bag, and told my folks that I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Got in my car, and started driving… wandered north on 91 until I hit 93, and then followed 93 South through Boston, until I ended up in Providence. I found myself on autopilot, getting off the same exit I always did, and wandering around town before ending up in the Apple Store at the mall. The mall is full of christmas shoppers, and I’m walking around thinking to myself that I’m coming slowly unraveled. It’s been the theme of the trip, really. I had Modest Mouse on for most of the trip, and kept on picking out the recurring themes of drifting and wandering and walking a hairy hairy edge on losing your mind. “The World at Large” continues to resonate strongly with me, with its followup, “Float On” a resounding mantra for me to keep in mind, that even if things end up a bit too heavy, we’ll all float on alright.

And now the update continues the next morning. Shortly after starting this post, I got a case of the shakes, and had to go find some food, fast. It’s something that happens sometimes. After eating a delicious chicken primavera (and subsequently handing my leftovers to a homeless man on the street), I climbed back into my car, and continued to drive. I’d been thinking of staying in Providence to photograph the streets late at night, but I found myself wanting to get wandering again. There’s still a lot of pent up frustration and hurt left over from the pseudo-exile that’s been imposed by the folks down there.

I ended up wandering east down 195, until I reached Cape Cod. I wandered up the Cape, until I ended up in Provincetown, at Race Point, where I stopped for the night. I wandered around the beach in the dark for a while, and then curled up in my car until morning. I was hoping to get some sunrise shots, but it was a remarkably grey dawn, with no color to speak of. Now I’m at the Rockingham Park Apple Store, again blogging. The free wireless access is truly a godsend for the itinerant blogger.

I have commitments back home tonight, and tomorrow, and again on the 21st. It’s probably for the best that I do. Otherwise, I don’t know where I’d stop.

It’s December Again

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I have, for all intensive purposes, disappeared for the past month, notwithstanding a one liner expounding the virtues of my dog. I’m not sure who exactly is interested in what’s been going on, but I figure it’s time to get back into the swing of things nevertheless. When we last left our adventures, our intrepid explorer was about to embark on a trip southward… well, that happened. I sauntered down to Silver Spring, where I spent a few days crashing with my brother and our friend Shane, and seeing several people in the DC area. Missed Hawk, missed Katy, managed to catch up (briefly) with Scott, Kevin, Andrea, Kyle, and Elizabeth, and in general had a good time. After that, I meandered further south down to Colonial Williamsburg, VA, where I spent Thanksgiving weekend with my friend Claire and her family, who were all simply fantastic. I had a really good time wandering around them, and getting to spend time with Claire was, well, like rain in the desert: cherished and far too rare. To any of you who happen to read this: thank you for letting me tag along.

My plans to continue southward were modified a bit, and I ended up heading back north after the weekend. I spent the week at home, and for the life of me, I can’t remember anything in particular about it, which is kind of unfortunate — anyone who has talked with me for more than 20 minutes knows how much I recount little esoteric minutiae, so having gaps kind of annoys me. I do know that the week was mostly in anticipation and planning for heading south again, this time down to South Carolina with Mike, Uri, and Kyle, to attend our friend Mariah’s graduation from Basic. Perhaps it seems a little odd to drive 2000 miles for essentially 2 hours of hanging out and a 45 minute ceremony, but the point was to show our support, and get out of the area for a while at the same time, so all in all, I’d say it was well worth it.

As ever, I drove the whole way. We had several very capable drivers in the car, they even offered, but I didn’t really ever feel ready to relinquish the wheel… I enjoy the act of driving and travel too much, I suppose. Which sort of segues into my next tidbit of information: I’ll likely be moving back to Seattle sometime in early January. I don’t know precisely when, but my current idea is to leave towards the end of the first week or beginning of the second. I still don’t have a job, nor have I lined up a place to live, but sometimes a leap of faith is necessary for progress to be made.

I say that it’s “likely” because there’s another idea that I’m working on at the moment. Without getting into too many details, I’m approaching a few schools that I think would benefit from it about designing a game design major for them. The first one I’m approaching is RISD, because I feel it’s the most obvious choice, and would benefit most directly from offering such a program. If they shoot it down, I have a few others I’m considering (including home turf, Dartmouth). There are a variety of reasons I’m looking into this, a lot of which stems from feeling confident that I could put together a strong game design curriculum that would make it genuinely competitive with other programs out there. I’ve also realized that as much as I despise the politics and hoop jumping of academia, I like to learn, and I like to share that learning with others… I’ve been giving some serious thought to applying to a masters program and becoming a professor somewhere. I’ll be putting together some basic information to send to the folks at RISD sometime in the next day or two, so hopefully we’ll see what sort of response they give soon enough.

That’s what I’ve been up to, mostly. I’ve been reading fiction again, which is nice (most recently, Anansi Boys, Stardust, and Good Omens… I also picked up Light, so that’s up next on my list). I’ve been working at pulling myself up by the bootstraps to get out of a really bad funk I’ve been in for the past few months, and while it’s still something of a rollercoaster, I think progress IS being made, slowly but surely. Some people in particular have really helped me, and I hope you know who you are. Several of them (but not all) have already been mentioned in this post, as a hint. One of these days, I hope I wake up and feel good and coherent and passionate again. Waking up and feeling like I’m “back” would be amazing beyond words.