We

It’s America Day. My US-based company gave me the paid day off. Bruce Springsteen blaring from my tape deck before heading to a BBQ with my friends. Felix is basking in the God’s sunshine pouring through my kitchen window. After the gym, Ima watch ID4 and get teary eyed at the We Will Not Go Quietly into the Night speech.

I’m a goddamn meat-eating, personal responsibility preaching, crushing-Budweiser-on-hot-day American. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and making something of yourself. I’m an existentialist. And I subscribe to the radical freedom newsletter. 

There’s a lot to love about this place. We forget that sometimes.

But also.

“Born in the USA” is about a disillusioned Vietnam vet’s return to an unwelcoming America. The beef industry ravages the environment as one of the leading causes of climate change and criminally mistreats the animals I conveniently divorce from their face-having origins. Steak tastes better when it comes from blue styrofoam and not from a calf suckling at her mother’s teat. Felix is my neighbor’s cat. The sun is nice though. No notes. Independence Day is a power fantasy about how the US is the world’s savior. But time has shown Will Smith to bear little resemblance to the charming, brave, and noble hero he portrays. Budweiser is owned by a Belgium company called AB InBev. Jean Paul Sartre abandoned existentialism in favor of Marxist ideals.

There’s a lot to lament about this place. We forget that sometimes.

America is that boyfriend who eschewed authority, tread his own path, and smoked cigarettes in a leather jacket in 100° heat. And we’ve been together for a while and we’re a little tired of his shit. Instead of a rebel maverick, they seem like petulant children refusing to put their shoes on. America is the season 8 of Game of Thrones we deserved. We’re munching popcorn watching crumbling ideals give way to selfishness and tyranny. We landed on the moon, and we hosted the most recent presidential debate. Sit with both of those for a while. 

Our fierce insistence on independence propelled this country. It made us great. But “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” only takes you so far. At some point, we must relearn to collaborate. To grow. To realize there are systemic issues which plague our meritocracy fantasy. Yes, we worked hard. Yes, we never gave up. But we had the wind at our back and we refuse to acknowledge anything but our own sweat is responsible for our success. Faster alone, further together. America was built by the “I,” but will only survive as a “We.”  

To love anything is to be conflicted. Being a fan requires a lot of nuance. From Woody Allen to Anti-Flag, we must sit in the uncomfortable place of loving and respecting their work, and being ashamed and embarrassed by their behavior. Cancel culture will give way to uncomfortable love. The longer we live, the more ambiguity we must reckon with. We are always A-in-the-mode-of-not-quite-being-A. Our identity will always be unstable, in flux, and at issue.  

America is neither the greatest country on earth, nor are we heathen infidels. We made rock and roll, but we stole it from the blues. We built an empire of prosperity on the backs of slaves. Tonight I encourage you to celebrate this country. It’s ours and it’s special. It has a lot to love. But it’s certainly not perfect, and its greatness is up for debate. Before the fireworks tonight, before the America, Fuck Yeahs, before the hot dogs and sparklers, listen to the demo version of “Born in the USA.” 

It hits different.

Say Uncle

In matters of love, there are uncles and there are fathers. Aunts and mothers. Both are valid, but require vastly different levels of commitment. The tireless, iron clad, heroic level of love offered by parenthood is beyond reproach. Their sacrifice commensurate with their legendary status. And then, somewhere in the margins, on the occasional weekend, there is the peculiar love offered by those one step removed.

I uncle neighborhood cats. I’ve loved a half dozen cats in my life, and not one of their collars had my phone number engraved on it. All of them have owners, and my affection for them is stitched together during bouts of outside time or incidental cohabitation. I travel frequently for work, and I sleep in hotel rooms with the same regularity as my own bed. And while my work life is a convenient excuse, there are a myriad of confounding reasons I do not have a cat to call my own.

Uncling is a genuine form of love. I love those little fuckers. All of them. Lady. Ollie. Tux. Timber. Sal. Felix. We play laser. Share snacks. Snuggle when it’s cold. There are few joys in my life more profound that seeing one of them waiting on my doorstep after a long day. My heart flutters when I hear the tiny mew from outside by door. There’s not much I wouldn’t drop to tend to their needs. As I write this, I’m wresting with a capricious black kitty vying for my lap’s attention.

And the vast majority of the time, it’s enough. My love car runs just fine on a quarter tank. I get some of the care and attention I need without consequence or responsibility. I don’t change litter boxes. I don’t pay vet bills. I am the fun uncle. But increasingly, after midnight, I’ll find myself obsessively cracking my front door hoping to find one of my part-time loves. 

As my door creaks closed, my heart sinks. I hope they are warm, cared for, and happy. The fate of an uncle is to love something that isn’t yours. If you aren’t willing to make the sacrifices, you don’t get the security. You can’t win what you don’t put in the middle. 

I’m a fantastic uncle. My love is kind, patient, and selfless. I’ve gotten so used to being loved by other people’s things, anything else feels terrifying. I fear I don’t have what it takes to be a father. Not sure I’m built for it. To uncle is to be a tourist to love. It is a jovial, marginally-fulfilling derivative form of love. It is the girl dinner of satisfaction.

I’ve spent my life as an uncle. It’s served my needs. Gave me an IV drip of joy. I’ve made countless meals of Ritz crackers. But I fear it might be time to learn to cook.

Maybe this has nothing to do with cats, parenthood, or cooking.

Signing Off

They put blueberries in beer.
I like blueberries. 

There's an oddness in my body. My stomach is noisy and bloated. My temples feel like I've been wearing a hat that's too small. My mouth is stale. My brain feels like someone is indelicately pressing their thumb against it. My neck and shoulders are sore and tight. Not that good I-did-150lb-shoulder-presses tight, something foreign.  

What is this feeling?

What is going on with my body?

Who let this happen?

And why?

And suddenly, like the climax of a game of Clue, the crime is revealed: it was Nick, in the bar, with chicken wings and beer.

This is a hangover. I have a hangover? I have a hangover. At almost thirty, I'm half my life late for this party. Gross. This is an awful feeling. How do regular people do this? I know why people do it, but I'm asking a procedural question. My body is wrecked. I mean absolutely ravaged, like an eighty pound girl in a gang bang. And I suspect that on the Richter Scale of pain, this rates as minor seismic activity. Embarrassingly, my alcoholic intake consisted of four drinks over ten hours (pause for laughter and humiliation).

Still, the sky did not fall down. I'm no worse for the wear. A thousand push-ups from now, my body will forgive me. My fears about becoming an unchained animal weren't realized and the Earth kept spinning. The world now knows a sillier Nick than it had previously. You're welcome, World. Don't get used to it. I like my life like I like my news: scandal-free, sober, and more interested in truth than entertainment.

From 775 to 773

Reno, Nevada: two years ago last month, I left you for Chicago. Yet the moment someone makes a snarky remark about you, I become six feet tall defending my little brother. I bailed. Reno still feels more like a home than Chicago. When I visit it feels like laying in the arms of an old girlfriend, familiar but altogether strange. Yet at this distance, I choose to see it in the most charitable light. And I emphasize choose. The city has more faults than San Andreas, but it was where I learned to be a man.

I'm moving in with my girlfriend this month. Those who've known me as an adult are apt to be surprised. And with good reason. I'm firmly of the belief that we never actively decide our values. We encounter them. They surprise us and assail us as if from outside ourselves. It took my whole life to turn me into someone ready to live with a girl. Even now, as we casually (i.e. not contractually) cohabitate, I implicitly know that if things ever get bad, my bed is a ten minute bike ride away. 

The remnants of a lifelong fear of intimacy and abandonment bubble up now and then. Crafty viruses lay dormant at the base of your spine even after you've recovered. They wait for the first sign of weakness, and like water on pavement, quickly fill the cracks. There is no immunity. You either learn to live with it, or you don't. If you're really lucky, you find someone who's willing to suffer through by your side. We are always susceptible. 

Am I cured? I don't even know what that means.

Am I better? Certainly.

Am I ready to live with someone? Ask me in a year. All I can say is that I'm committed, which for me is the bulk of the battle.

I have a better girl than I deserve, but more importantly I'm hoping I've learned how not to fuck it up. It doesn't mean I won't feel compelled to bolt the minute things get bad, but it's a promise that I won't. I'm discovering that staying has its merits. 

Without Reno, there is no Chicago. There is just Nick's studio apartment and masturbation and noodling. So when people talk shit about Reno, they are talking shit about twenty years of my life, family, and friends. Here's to growing up in Reno and moving away and to the love along the way.    

The Body's Need for Eight Hours of Sleep is Not a Myth

I sat in front of the keyboard for an hour tonight. Swing and a miss. My body feels alien from lack of sleep. Like it's not even mine. Like I'm renting a cheap suit that doesn't quite fit. Or the tailor got halfway through and gave up. Or I hit a growth spurt in selective areas of my body and now the proportions are all out of whack.

Either way, I had two bowls of cereal instead. Also, I cleaned the house. Marvelous how distractions can make the most miserable tasks appealing. I wanted to not write so much that I folded laundry. As I went to knock out the dishes, it dawned on me that nothing is more miserable than doing dishes and went back to writing instead.

Back To Life

Dad loves getting me up early.

Jesus was resurrected for his courage on the cross. Or he wasn't. Christian philosophy is more interesting to me than the mythology. I read the Bible like any other philosophy book. I am without faith, not an atheist. When you're broke you're without money, not against it. So I guess I'm spiritually broke. Today the theists are making it rain, but for me, Easter is about my Dad.

Just as I was getting too old to search for eggs, my Dad took me on a business trip to a tiny city in rural Nevada where the McDonald's was the happening place for kids to hang out. The job took longer than anticipated. We'd expected to be home in time to celebrate, but we were stuck. After working a ten hour day, he searched every grocery store in the town for candy to fill an Easter Basket. Trouble is, I hated chocolate. He found every shape of chocolate, but he knew that I liked sour candy. So on he searched. It must have been around 7PM when he finally got back to the motel because the second episode of The Simpsons was on.

He walked in with a bowl of Warheads, Sour Patch Kids, gum and a single chocolate bunny. I broke off the ear and filled the bunny with milk like I always did. It took a decade for me to appreciate what a gesture it was. At the time I was happy to get candy, almost entitled to it. Never thought about how my Dad made holidays about us and our traditions: crab legs on Christmas and Rocky IV on Thanksgiving. During my vegetarian phase, he made Tofurky even though he couldn't stand it. Though who really enjoys that shit?

I don't know anything about Jesus' struggle on the cross, or what it means to be resurrected, but I know my Dad loves me. He'd never let me suffer unless he thought it built character. He'd jump into oncoming traffic to keep me from stubbing my toe. Easter is about spending time with my Dad. And this is only the second time I haven't gotten an Easter Basket full of non-chocolates. I'm going to stop at the corner store and get some Sour Punch Straws for the both of us.

Desert Homestead

Photo by Jacqueline Castel (2004)

It's only now that I realize how weird it was growing up in the middle of nowhere. As a kid you accept anything. Nothing seems weird. You have no basis for comparison. Outside my front door was a horizon of sagebrush. Normal. You had to drive through several trailer parks to find my house. No big deal. There isn't a stoplight for miles. Typical. Giving other kids' parents directions was like giving a dissertation. Routine.

I grew up the richest kid in a poor neighborhood. Roads to my house were actually paved. We had a fence that could keep our dogs inside the yard. I had a Game Boy and an NES. It was like being the prince of a third-world country. It wasn't until high school when I started dating girls from Galena that I realized that we were poor.  

There was one kid my age on my block. We had no choice but to be friends. We used to ride our bikes to the sanitation plant and pretend it was a fortress holding our girlfriends captive. Mine was a girl from my kindergarten named Summer, and other times it was Summer's Mom, who'd once kissed me on the cheek. I don't remember who Brian was rescuing. We'd build forts in the desert and look at his dad's Playboys. We'd play with fire.   

He was a few years older than I and beat me at everything. Looking back, my disdain for losing is probably rooted here. During a particularly vicious tetherball game, he served the ball as hard as he could. The ball rocketed past my guard and hit me in the face. Tears and snot coated my face. I cried easily as a child. It wasn't pain; I could handle pain. Leaping from rock to rock catching blue-belly lizards, I skinned my knee plenty of times, but the pain was barely a thought. But shame was devastating. Missing the ball made me feel small, which I was. I'm a small guy now, I was especially small then. And I still hate losing. 

The freest I ever felt was riding my bike to school with him. We'd stop at the 7-11 and get shredded beef jerky. The kind that looked like the carpet from my dad's house. We'd longingly stare at the covers of the nudie mags but settle on a Cracked magazine consolation prize. Going to Sev was the only thing that made me look forward to going to school. We'd wave to the chumps on the bus with Sixlets and Slurpees in our hands. You gotta pound the Slurpee on the counter. Even if you think it's full, put on the dome lid and pound for another few seconds.  You'll get an extra ounce or two for sure. 

Playing games, looking at boobs, and pounding back Slurpees. That was the life. Not much has changed after twenty years. I was on to something then, and I'm on to something now. I'm not interested in money. I don't care about amassing wealth. This month I moved into a studio apartment slightly larger than a room at a Motel 6 so I could dedicate time to being creative. My kitchen cabinet is being used as a dresser. I want to spend time with people I love, create things discerning audiences would like, and feel like that kid outside 7-11. Part-time 'til I die. No part of me wishes I had grown up somewhere else. Too much of me is in that desert and I wouldn't want to leave him behind.    

I'm a Sleepy Bear

I can't sleep. No, it's more ambiguous than that. It's somewhere between can't and won't. My body doesn't get tired. It runs at full steam until collapsing, usually around 4AM. Clinically I imagine I'm a high-functioning insomniac, though I'm not fond of the term. It implies a disease. I just don't sleep, like people who don't eat dairy. I suppose my body is capable of it, but seems disinterested like a caged panda bear. When some people lie down their eyes close, their heart rate slows, and at some point the REM cycle kicks in. Me not so much. Somewhere between the rampant noodling and spaghetti bowl bottleneck of ideas in my brain, sleep never gets much stage time.

I'm not complaining. It's how I work. I just think it's odd is all. I am exhausted with envy for you eight hour people.

Yearly Checkup

Henry says, "Go be famous, Dad."

December marks my one-year anniversary of living in Chicago. After a quarter century living in Reno, Nevada, I chased a nebulous fantasy of being a creative juggernaut to the doughy Midwest. Either as a writer, actor, musician, or improviser, I wanted a life spent making things with my friends; I wanted to build sandcastle monuments.

Having just been offered a job in Seattle doing computer programming, I was set to build a regular life: career, family, wrestling the most handsome dog on the planet. But I knew it wouldn't make me happy. The parts of my life I've spent creatively latent were miserable. Making things keeps me sane. I need it. I figured this would be the last time I'd ever be young enough, foolish enough, and willing to scrape by working a part-time job to fund my idiot dreams.

So I left. I sold worldly possessions, left the big stuff in my Dad's attic, and drove out to the home of long-form improvisation, the iO Theater. If this were a movie, the camera would take a long pan of me in my car chasing my future. Elliot Smith would follow my car into the wild unknown.  Sadly, this is not Good Will Hunting.  

Turns out you actually have to do work. Chicago is an enormous city where talented people are common as North Face jackets. Everyone in classes at iO is a performer, actor, singer or unfairly handsome. They're all here for the same reasons I am.  There was no grand dream, no expectation to be on SNL or become famous. At the time I had no idea what Second City even was. I used Napoleon's plan. First I'd show up, then I'd see what happened.*

I'm here, with no earthly attachments, financially secure, and of sound body and mind. There are only two things that will stop me from succeeding: lack of talent and fear. Right now I'm concerned about the latter. The ugly four-letter word manifests itself through self-doubt. It is a tiny voice that sneaks into my ear at the end of a bad show. Shows become a thing of dread. My stomach gets twisted in knots and I get sucked into a vortex of insecurity that causes me to do perform poorly, which in turn causes more crushing self-doubt.

Fuck fear. Moving here was the opening gambit in my war on fear. It's trench warfare. My troops are weary and tired, but in good spirits. A war report has been commissioned and the debriefing should be available as early as tomorrow. Come back for the carnage report card.

*Sports Night and Napoleon

These Jeans

89509

I visited my hometown for the first time in almost a year. My Chicago anniversary quickly approaches.  Having stayed at home for college, it was the longest I'd been away from my father in my whole life. I'd seen my best friend, Tim, literally everyday for the last decade.  For the last ten months I've been two thousand miles away from the life I had spent a quarter century making. Then, a miraculous plane ride later, I'm back home.  

Being back home is like wearing an old pair of jeans. The experience is dependent on the kind of person you've become. Even if you're exactly the same size, and the jeans fit just as you'd expect, the experience is still startling. They remind you of who you used to be. After putting on a few pounds the jeans feel cumbersome and awkward. They remind you who you used to be. If you've recently gotten your shit together, the jeans sag around your waist.  They remind you of who you used to be.

Landing in Reno was like sleeping with an old lover: simultaneously familiar and foreign. There is hesitation and excitement. Palpable excitement. The air feels different. Literally. The desert breathes differently than the Midwest.  Initially, the strangeness is most prevalent, but trust and the comfort tame the awkwardness. The familiar is seductive. It declares, "You have a place in the world. I remember you. When all others treat you as a stranger, these arms remain open to you. Welcome home."    

I'm not sure how my Reno jeans fit. Even now that I'm back in 60613, I don't know. For that matter, I don't know how my Chicago jeans fit. I'm perpetually visiting the cities I inhabit. I don't know what it means to have a "home" anymore. I was a Renoite for my entire life. It was part of my identity and how I understood myself.  

Then I moved. I picked a city and I moved there. To a disturbing extent, the city was arbitrary. I could have just as easily moved to Los Angeles to study at iO West and Magnet in New York. Am I entitled to call Chicago home? I have no roots here. No family. I pay rent. That's about it. I could live anywhere right now. So if Chicago isn't home base, what is? Reno has moved on. My friends and family are all tangled up in their own lives. They're getting married, graduating, and raising their kids. And they should be. 

I'm a grandson coming to visit during the summer. When you visit family, everyone is on their best behavior. Grandmothers and grandsons rarely ever fight. When you see someone once a year, and there's a real possibility you'll never see them again, there's no time for fighting. It isn't until your parents divorce and your grandson comes to live with you for a few years that you really start to hate him. The please-and-thank-you routine goes out the window and you end up engaging him like a human being. I'd rather fight with someone than play nice.  Reno is my grandmother now; I visit her and she politely smiles at me. I love this woman, but she has a life without me 51 weeks a year. She loves me, but the bed I sleep in isn't my own. 

This isn't to take anything away from my friends and family. I spent twenty-five years finding the best dozen people in Nevada and I love each of them immensely. If being away has taught me anything, it is that I am wholly dependent on my friends.  No matter how satisfying my life is here and how many opportunities I am able to explore, my friends and family are undeniably necessary to my happiness. 

I won't be able to call anywhere home until I can mate my creative satisfaction with the loves of my life. These jeans need their closet-mates. They're lonely.     

Summer 2001: Analog Polaroids

Music is a time machine and a scrapbook. Three CDs made up the soundtrack of that summer: Frank Sinatra's standards, Foo Fighters Colour and the Shape, and The Misfits Static Age. That's it. When I hear "Witchcraft" my body inhabits 722 Forest St. Apt A. I can taste Carolyn's cheesecake. My nose burns with smell of ash in the air. My toes swim in soaking wet Chucks after a night closing the food court. I can see the chicken wing graveyard Tim and I made while playing Baldur's Gate until dawn. I can hear Tim shouting, "Blaze of glory! I'm a hero!!!"

Perhaps it's why I don't take photographs. The records that defined a time in my life might as well be statues erected in a public square. Analog Polaroids. They will belong to my consciousness for all times. Some break my heart, while others, like the one I'm about to play for you now, are songs unadulterated rapture. It is a three day mix tape I'll never get tired of listening to.

Moving into my first apartment took about 15 minutes. I owned practically nothing: band t-shirts, black Dickies, and a boom box I bought when I was thirteen. Everything else belonged to the rental company. Lime greens, daisy yellows and furniture that had no earthly business in this decade populated our home. A one bedroom apartment divided by two boys involves some funny math. Tim slept in the living room on a futon and I slept in the room. There was some arbitrary rent adjustment, but I'm sure it wasn't fair to Tim. How to do you put a price on a door? None of that mattered at the time.

This tiny kingdom was made possible by pizza. Slinging pies made us free. Ice cream for dinner? Yeah, we did that. Playing Super Metroid until your eyes bled on a 12" screen, we felt like kings.

It happened so fast. Just days after quitting my pet store job, I found a new one. I moved in with my best friend and starting dating the woman I would love for the next half decade. The bed the apartment came with was tiny and the springs pushed through the mattress. The comforter was fifty years old. But the first night I slept next to a beautiful brunette who was worlds smarter than me, my heart almost split a seam. I was surrounded by two of the finest models the good lord ever released to the public.

Summer 2001: The Inciting Incident

It's June in a very dry year. With a diploma in my pocket, the first summer of my adult life began. This is an homage to Tim Dufrisne and Carolyn Van Lydegraf.  It's a tribute to those warm days and late nights, to my first emotional growth spurt and the last time I loosened my tie, let my hair down, and had fun. The seamless confluence creativity, playfulness, love, and joy. Here's to you, summer 2001.

I'm working as a lead cashier at a pet store in Reno, Nevada. My boss calls me into his office. With a snide grin of self-satisfaction, he says, "Nick, we're going to have to issue you a written counseling notice." A couple things are important about this situation.  First, in my twelve year work experience, I've never been written up for anything before or since.  My father bred a work ethic into me.  Its deep inside me and I have very little to do with it.  I hate disappointing people. Consequently, I refuse to do even the most menial tasks poorly. I am a retail titan.  If there's company protocol that's spelled out in an operations manual, it's gospel to me. Second, I have just applied for my first apartment, a small one bedroom in the old southwest part of Reno. Third, I'm broke, living paycheck to paycheck. Fourth, My boss, Mike, dislikes me.  He is fairly certain I'm gay, doesn't care for the fact that I play in a rock 'n roll band, and hates how much I say "hella."

He hands me the notice. Grinning, he says, "You can make any comments you like at the bottom." I know he's fucking with me. He's trying to get under my skin and it's working.  In the comments section, I wrote, "This is my two week notice." and signed my name.

It turns out that apartment hunting is markedly more difficult when you leave the current employer space blank. Nevertheless, a naive optimism perseveres. Tim and I settle on a 1 bedroom, furnished apartment at the Casson Apartments, a retirement community --unbeknownst to us-- in the old southwest part of Reno.  Our house hunt had one criterion: proximity to downtown. It was the heartbeat of the city and we wanted to be near it. The decision was rash and impetuous. It really didn't matter what the apartment looked like, if it were within walking distance of downtown, it was destined to be perfect.

We turned in our application and crossed our fingers. Our journey together had begun. To write, to find love, and to flourish.  We had chosen our headquarters: Nim Manor. It was our tiny kingdom and without it, we wouldn't be the men we are today.

Champion Insomniac

I've forgotten how to sleep.  Unless my body is on the verge of total exhaustion, it refuses to stop. Like a whale in captivity, it refuses to eat.  I present the main dish of a queen Sealy Posturpedic Mira Loma II with the ten year, non-prorated warranty, and all the trimmings: dual goose down / memory foam pillows and jersey sheets.  Yet it scoffs.  I can't tempt myself.  It hasn't eaten in months but it won't eat.  Why won't it eat?

I can feel my heart racing as I lay in my bed. It beats like it's trying to escape from my chest. Only in bed am I alone with my brain. My brain and I are like an old married couple. The only way they peacefully coexist is by keeping them separated as much as possible. At night, they are forced into the same space.  No distractions. Just a brain and a boy.

Before long, I cave. I can't stand the bickering.  I reach for the computer that sleeps on the side of my bed where a woman should be. Tech blogs, Chicago weather updates, Facebook.  Repeat.  I stare until my eyes ache and my fingers stumble across the keyboard like a girl learning to walk in high heels.  My body begs for sleep but my brain won't budge an inch. Fast forward three hours.

My chest is heavy. The air is thick. Sleep is a stranger.  I want to go to her.

Annoyance Intensive, Day 2

I'm surprising myself lately. This week one of my best friends has traveled from Portland to study at the Annoyance Theatre's week-long improv intensive. It has been a wild ride and we've only finished day two.

Yesterday, I watched an improv show that moved me to tears. Steve Waltein, the show's monologist, recounted the story of his father's recent death in the most moving, honest, and heartbreaking ways. This was juxtaposed with the utter hilarity of the scene work. I cried through most of the show.

First of all, doing improv from 9-5 is no less exhausting than working a job-type job. My brain is goo. Today I played for nine hours, pinballing between The Annoyance and iO for my regular class. The day is a haze. By the time I got to my night class, I was barely conscious. What was bizarre was that it made my scene work better. After running what felt like a hundred exercises and scenes, I was finally free to play. There wasn't enough energy in my body to be nervous or in my head.

The sheer volume of improv I'm doing this week makes each individual exercise less stressful. Each scene matters to me less and less. I've been gripping the club to tightly. I'm finally starting to loosen up my swing and trust my body to take care of me. I'm starting to see how this lesson applies to much more than just improv. I think I might have been duped into a week-long therapy session and not known it.

A Ticking Egg Timer

I work a day job. I justify it by saying that it allows me to chase my dreams and immerse myself in creative endeavors. Most days I watch Netflix, dick around on the Internet, and indulge my vanity at the gym. At best I spend ten hours a week being creative. Does this really justify my employment choice? How long can I keep this up before I admit to myself that I should get an adult job. Ten hours a week does not an artist make. There is an expiration date on my current life.

"Send that stuff on down to me." -Nick Cave

3GS Jailbreak

Attn: Owners of a 3GS with the old boot rom running iPhone OS 3.1.3 and jailbroken with Spirit trying wanting to upgrade to a jailbroken version of IOS 4.

The iPhone Dev-Team released an exploit that allows the 3GS to be jailbroken using IOS 4. I have a 3GS with the old boot rom (iBoot 359.3) which ran swimmingly on 3.1.2 jailbroken with Blackra1n. I was noodling with it (as I am wont to do) and I bricked it. After restoring it, I was forced to upgrade to iPhone OS 3.1.3 which required the new Spirit JB (Blackra1n is not 3.1.3 compatible). The Dev-Team's exploit is incompatible with Spirit. Long story short, I thought I was unable to upgrade my phone to a jailbroken version of IOS 4.

However!

My SHSHs are on file with Cydia. I was able to download the 3.1.2 .ipsw and downgrade my firmware, a process which Apple won't sign. However, I was able to fake the authentication and restore the firmware thanks to a fantastic how-to guide. Warning: Make sure your SHSHs are on file with Cydia. Otherwise, you might be screwed.

After restoring, I was home free. I rain Blackra1n to re-jailbreak the 3.1.2 firmware and then updated iTunes to 9.2 and used PwnageTool to create a custom .ipsw of IOS 4. Once that finished, I put my phone into restore mode and uploaded the hacked IOS 4 .ipsw. After one final sync and I should have a fully jailbroken 3GS running IOS 4.

I. Love. Technology.

Update 1: I was wrong. After updating, the phone network was non-existent; it needed to be hackivated. Luckiy, the Dev-Team's Ultrasn0w works on all current basebands (mine is 05.12.01). I ran Ultrasn0w which opened up a whole new series of issues. Though the unlock allowed me to access the AT&T network, my push certificates are not on file with Apple. I could not receive ANY push notifications and my phone was not authorized to access YouTube ("This video is not playable" error). After scouring the web, I found a fix called PushFix 2.0. This is a paid fix, but will get you the cert you need to receive push notifications. Works beautifully. Also, the bundle fixes the YouTube issue.

Careful which Cydia apps you update. Many are not IOS 4 ready and will cause MobileSubstrate to crash repeatedly. A current list of compatible apps is located here. For now, phone is stable. No immediate issues. Everything is functional.

This process took me the better part of a day to iron the kinks out of this system I highly recommend waiting for GeoHot's exploit. It will probably be much simpler than the Dev-Team's. I would postpone your jailbreak for a month or two to let the devs get their apps compatible with IOS 4. It will save you hours of troubleshooting.

Jailbreak on a previously jailbroken 3GS with old boot rom is currently possible, though at this point, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. Wait a couple weeks and the process should be streamlined.

Note: This is not a how-to guide. I wanted to chronicle the process whereby my phone was jailbroken so that others in a similar situation may be assured that it is possible. The Dev-Team has a complete how-to guide found here including all relevant downloads. Free your phones (or just buy an Android phone)!

I feel about Apple the way Mill feels about utilitarianism. I'm glad Apple designs it's software to be both bullet and idiot-proof. Most people need a stringent set of rules and should not step outside of them. Mill knew that utilitarianism debased us and kept us from our potential, but it kept the game going. He knew and wanted men to break the rules. He knew that the elite were exempt. A million thanks to all the hackers, developers, and iPhone noodlers out there who made this possible.

Perspective

I was laying on the beach reading this afternoon and I didn't know what day it was. My life is pretty good.

Reminders

A car passes my house. It's the make and model of the one you drove. I wonder if you've changed your mind. My ears perk up. Even though it's never you, it makes me smile.

Bibo

I'm turning twenty-seven this month and have never had a sip of alcohol. Nothing. I've trudged through every awkward party, spent romantic dinner wine-less, raised a glass of water for every toast, and endured the humiliation of ordering the swill that is generic bar cola. When people would ask my why I didn't drink, I always had some overly intellectualized, up-my-own ass answer. Something along the lines of, "I never relinquish the reins of my consciousness... bear the weight of the abyss on my own...". I'm a pretentious asshole. As I moved from studying philosophy to my vanity project of going to the gym, my answer laterally evolved, "I'm trying to eat purely out of utility. I'm cutting soda from my diet; I'm not sure there's a lot of room for alcohol in my life."

We act. In my case, that act is abstaining. Afterwards we are forced to give an explanation of our behavior. The truth is that we react in a moment and are forced to give it rational cohesion and meaning afterwards. Only afterwards. We are asked to justify ourselves. The truth is: someone offers me a drink and I decline. That's it. Everything else is an intellectual construction.

As I spend more and more of my life in bars and around people who drink, I am again forced to evaluate my alcoholic abstinence. Though it kills me to watch my brilliant companions rendered unrecognizable in their inebriation, perhaps the source of my chagrin is my refusal to leave behind this adolescent hang up. I've pushed it away for so long it feels like I've created an invisible wall between me and it. There is no wall; it lurks after every practice, during every dinner, and at every intermission. Its temptation is real.

While I previously enjoyed the sense of individuality and uniqueness that it offered, it now feels alienating. Everyone is having a pool party, and I'm the kid who refuses to take his shirt off.

My suspicion is that I abstain from drinking out of sheer habit. There is only one question that drives me: Is my behavior motivated from fear? Do I not drink from a place of fear? Or, is my steadfast refusal a gambit that strengthens my character?

Honestly I have no idea, but I will trust my heart. It tells me not to follow fear.

I just don't yet know what I'm afraid of.

Deceptively Simple Advice

The last good idea I heard did not come form Tolstoy. It did not come from Woody Allen. It wasn't from a moving piece of music, nor an artwork hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago. It came from Lynette, a co-worker, during one of our shifts together. It was two simple words: fall back.

Let the dust settle. See what's what. Fall back.