Category: Moving

  • Back in New York

    It has been a silly crazy, stressful, and all around hectic three months. After the fires hit Sonoma County, my wife got laid off from her job. It was a pretty sickening one two punch, but it made us look at each other and ask if we were happy, and if there was something else we wanted to do? In a sort of funny question, we asked each other, “Do you want to return to New York?” Clearly that was pretty much impossible. Like that was the most out of left field thing we could do with the situation we were in.

    But the more we sat on it, then more we liked the idea. It still didn’t seem practical, though.

    Then we ran the numbers, and it turned out that it was more affordable to live in Manhattan than Sonoma County.

    Yes, you read that correctly. Not San Francisco; Sonoma County. It really makes me kind’a sad to say that out loud, and I will get on a soap box soon to talk about the wealth gap in America, and the homeless problem in California, but I don’t want you to think that the Bay Area is some sort of shit hole. It’s beautiful, and amazing, and magical, but completely unaffordable for the rest of us now. That’s another blog for another day.

    When we discovered that New York was more affordable, it pretty much sealed the deal, and we decided to go. We had to get through the Holidays first, and as soon as Christmas was over, it became a two-week marathon to get it done. Selling a car, packing everything up, getting the kid into an NYC school, flying cross country, and now, sitting back in my old neighborhood, writing a blog. Last week, I was at a U-Haul store loading a box wondering if we would ever get this done.

    We did.

    Now, on to Act Two…

  • The Little Things that Make the Difference

    It is closing in on a year that I have lived in California. Specifically, in the North Bay area. It is pretty here, and the people are nice, but I am still getting used to the differences.

    Air Conditioning: Mainly, not a lot of people have it, and don’t get me wrong, I understand why. It’s only three months out of the year that you might need it, and that would be about half of the days. What makes it weird is that Summer is July, August and September. October started to feel like fall, but even this week, we got hit with a heat wave in the 90’s. As I have been told, this is not normal, need A/C in late October, but as you will see, that phrase has been a theme.

    Rain: It’s pretty much all or nothing around here. We are in late October, and it should be raining, but it’s not. We should average 5 days of rain… We’ve had one. The rain makes everything green, and washes away the dirt and the pollen. But this is not a normal year.

    Power outages/Wildfires: So, the power company cuts off the power when it gets too windy. I understand why. It’s just that I feel like that as a modern society, we should be able to better handle fires, other than a blanket power shut off. As I write this, the Kincade Fire is burning 20 miles north of us, and I can smell the smoke. What makes this weirder is that where the fire started, that area didn’t have power. Shutting off power is new, and not normal.

    Now, I am 30 minutes from the beach, and 20 minutes from a huge Redwood rainforest. That’s pretty cool. I’m just getting used to it all.

  • Day Off, Yesterday

    We moved again, to a bigger apartment this time. The extra space we have gained has come in the form of guest bedroom, that will also be used as an office. I had the day off from work yesterday, and I choose to take the day to set it up. I put all of my journals out, and pulled some books from one of the many box of books we have. In the roughest sense, I am ready to go. To go and start creating. I was ready…

    And then I took a lunch break, and never really got back to it.

    Part of what got me wrapped up was all the Trump/Squad racist garbage that couldn’t seem to ignore or get away from. It was all over the TV, and the internet, and all of my friends were up in arms on social media about the vile racist Trump is. And we all should be upset by the crap that man says as he is trying to be reelected by dividing and hating.

    And through all of this, I have this awful feeling that Trump will be reelected. Then I saw this in the Times this morning, and it didn’t make me feel better.

    That is the awfulness of Trump, and how effective he is at getting under everyone’s skin, and sucking the air out of every room. I had my own work to do yesterday, and I just got side tracked into thinking about how deeply racist this country is. Clearly, we as American’s need to keep working at the state of race relations, and inequality in this country. But, it won’t get better if Trump wins another term.

    And yet here we are…

  • Too Long

    I have been away far too long from this. The new job happened, and then we all got into the swing of things when it comes to living in California. It has been a learning curve.

    The worst part is that I have completely let myself fall into old and bad habits. There is no working out, and I have noticed that, though NYC was a grind, car culture has made me lazy. I drive everywhere, and I don’t move. At least NYC meant that I had to walk everywhere, and that meant on most days I got my 10,000 steps in.

    It’s as if two different and competing ideas are in my head right now.

    First, there is the part of me that feels like with all these changes, I have lost my stability, and everything feels like it’s on the edge of spinning out of control. (This is not actually true, but it is the feeling that I have, since my life of the past 12 years has changed. And as I co-worker said to me, people don’t deal with change well at all.) I don’t know what my new stability is, or how to create it, so in the end, it feels like nothing is really getting accomplished.

    The other side is that I keep trying to force my new CA life to behave like my NYC life. The best example I can give is that in NYC, once I got home, I never went back out. Such as, I tried to schedule my life around the idea of being out (Leave for work, then rehearsal, then drinks with friends, then dinner, then home and done,) for as long as possible, and when I got home at the end of the day, my day was over. Here, not unlike when I was in TX, I can come and go from event to home, to event to home, but in my head, it’s like once I get home, I can’t leave again… Which is silly, but that was the way I lived for 12 years.

    Anyway, the point here is that I have trying to get out of old habits, make new and healthier ones, and find a way to live a new way, with new possibilities. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be.

  • Interviewing

    I have been on a handful of interviews this week and last. (Waiting to hear back. No offers yet.) I have written before that I am very anxious about finding work, at least to just help contribute to the family’s finances. I don’t like feeling useless, like I’m not helping out.

    I don’t think I am good at interviewing to begin with. It reminds me so much of auditioning which, out of all the steps in a theatre production, was my least favorite. I remember a professor in college telling me that I need to find a way to love all the steps in the process, to be a well-rounded and to keep my sanity, as it is a tough business.

    On all the interviews I have been on, everyone has been really nice, and no one is pulling any “gotcha” questions to trip me up. I dare even say that they are trying to make me feel as comfortable as possible.

    The issues are all on my end. I need a job and I don’t want to fuck it up.

    Also, talking about myself feels very weird.

    I feel like as a child I was told so many times to be humble, and not conceded, so when I am put in situations where it is expected of me to speak about myself, I find myself clamming up.

    I have been pushing myself to talk more in these situations.

    Trying to think of it as another opportunity to grow and break out of old bad habits.

    Hopefully, it will lead to a job.