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I mostly just most because I have a tendency to conflate surroundings with circumstance. Hopefully that's something I've grown out of--I didn't leave Colorado for any reason other than complete dissatisfaction with my job, my town, etc.--but we'll see. I rather like New Mexico, and it's given me some incredible things, but even if they were "taken away" in a situation that'd be, to use your word, "catastrophic," this place is still so new and fresh to me that there's plenty of space to carve something out of.
I moved around a lot when I was in Utah because I was trying to find something that the place wasn't capable of giving me. When you're in a single place for that long, too many things eventually remind you of too many things, and with all of the horrible things that happened there--especially the things inherently facilitated or exacerbated by the singular culture--flitting about like some residential hummingbird was about the only way I could keep at bay whatever it was from which I was trying to escape.
The realization, of course, is that those same things followed me everywhere, including Colorado, including New Mexico, and they're so deeply ingrained in me that I doubt I'll ever escape or exorcise them. That being said, it's been a good process to accept these things, the abrasive scars and the still-open wounds and the twitching muscle memories, as internalized.
I've started reading a lot of a writer named Geoff Dyer, and he suggested that writers should: "Have regrets. Use them as fuel." Reexamining that advice helped me to begin shaping a lot of these events not as things that are part of my identity, but as fires from which something good can be shaped.
A little bummed it took me this long to figure that out, but I take a relative degree of comfort in gratitude that I've figured them out at all; many never will.
But, to answer your question: Baker City, OR. There's a little house for sale on 4th Street that I could probably afford within a year or two, so if I don't end up going to law school out here, I could see that being my foray into long-term residency. -
Not particularly, which isn't a fantastic answer. Hope things are better for you now, though.
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Yeah. Wasn't worth it. People don't change. They just stop getting caught.
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Don't lie to people. Don't be shitty. It's neither hard nor complicated to be a good person. So just do it.
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Never been on one. But I imagine they're fantastic. My love of Melville necessitates that I eventually spend some degree of time on a boat, so here's hoping.
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Nic, Katie, or Ezola. Good folks all.
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Yeah. I lost my job last year because I had developed a substantial anxiety problem and it had begun to hinder my work. They sorta went about it in a shady way--getting me to recommend a replacement and pretending they'd be a coworker--but hey, that's on them.
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I have no time for enemies. I can think of a few people who would like to puff themselves up to that sort of pseudostature, but yeah, I can't take someone seriously if I don't respect them, and anyone that would be an "enemy" is irrelevant.
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Back, side, stomach. In that order. Can't cut corners and jump straight to stomach, either. It's a process.
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Far more. I'll often write something and then find myself saying it aloud, and vice versa. Life imitating art imitating life and all that.
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I wish. That'd be a lot less complicated than the reality has proven itself to be.
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Because there are a few things in Utah that I have to let run their course.
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I was going to put "alcohol," but I remembered that any familiar misery is the same as any other. Hence: http://getoutfromunderit.blogspot.com/2011/03/firewater.html
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It's the first place in my adult life where I've ever found peace. For more detail, see:
http://getoutfromunderit.blogspot.com/2011/03/baker-city-revisited.html
http://getoutfromunderit.blogspot.com/2011/03/past-two-years.html
http://getoutfromunderit.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-marriage.html
It's far too pretty for me to not live there. And having Utah's 2011 winter extend into May makes me want to pack up tonight. -
I turn on Tom Waits' "Closing Time" or the Twilight Singers' "There's Been an Accident" and think about Oregon. While it doesn't really make it go away, it does make it easier to handle.
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I'm sort of obsessive right now, actually. I started doing some regular training for boxing, and it's become my go-to pastime at any point wherein any of my many-splendoured neuroses come out to play. I probably spend about twelve hours a week doing the actual trainings, with additional time spent on food preparation/diet, other exercise, and meditation (yeah, seriously). It brings me a clear head and keeps the panic attacks away (or at least makes them manageable).
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Andy Sherwin’s Bio
Learn more at http://getoutfromunderit.blogspot.com
