I posted a new set of photos today.  It's taken at Discovery Park at Sunset (as the name implies).  Something new here - I've incorporated some new techniques, both in photography and in post processing (Adobe Lightroom is a fantastic new toy - I'd love to buy it someday).   There are a lot of shots that appear to be of the same thing.  There are differences in composition and timing (notice the sun) and I originally took over 200 shots - so you're just getting the very few I decided to keep.

http://cid-d2ad83b102d2854d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/2009%20-%20July%20-%20Discovery%20Park%20Sunset

Today is a special day.  An anniversary, actually.  Four months have now elapsed since I became unemployed.  What a four months it has been, really.  I could have, and have by many accounts, done next to nothing.  By my own measure, it and the preceding period have provided a wealth of experience.  I don’t think anyone would be surprised to find out I hoped to have found work by now.  However, some of you may be surprised to find out that in fact, I expected that it would be about now that I would be writing this email or something like it.

Here’s the short.  I’m coming back.  I’m leaving Washington and moving back to California to seek refuge at home, to enjoy the company of my family and friends, to have a place where I can rely on the support of others.  Not out of necessity – I could find some work here if I wanted and, in fact, I could even sustain myself on it.   If I were really to be honest to myself, I could have found work three months ago.  Maybe not work I wanted to do, but I could have found work to make a sustainable practice of my tenure in WA.  No, the hardest reality for me is that I’m coming back because I want to.

The other short is that I’m not coming back to work as an attorney.  Sure, I may decide to take the bar exam and join the California bar, but it will not be for the purpose of professional practice – it will be to enable me to continue to provide professional advice to friends and family, at least for the time being.   What will I do?  Well, I think that’s probably for another posting, and, to be completely honest, not completely decided.  Suffice it to say, I will have a plan – or 5 plans.

Really, it is with a somewhat heavy heart that I have come to these decisions, but with quite a bit of joy in the same breath. 

Let’s talk about the attorney thing first.  I recognize that this may come to a surprise for some, but I never specifically liked what I did as an attorney – sure there were a few moments of satisfaction and/or excitement, but the daily experience and the end results simply weren’t all that attractive to me.  I like the idea of it – our society respects (and often loathes) attorneys (insert discussion about necessary ostracization of specialized and revered individuals in society here) and frankly, I enjoy respect and distinction as much or more than the next guy.  The problem is that I’ve gotten a good chance to see attorneys: attorneys who own their own firms and support a full staff of happily working professionals, attorneys just finally making it on their own, attorneys succeeding in hard cases with difficult clients to unexpected financial success.  Sure, others have seen it more than me, but I’ve seen it.  The truth is, one question has never left my mind: is it enough for me?  Can I do what I want to do in that context.  Another difficult truth to reconcile: yes, I can do what I want to do in that context.  However, what I’ve decided is that the scenario where those needs are satisfied is distant and uncertain – maybe a dozen years or more away.  Frankly, it is those dozen years in which my concern lies and is the reason I am choosing to make a change.  I believe that I may be able to do things that I want to do and that would satisfy me long before those fruits could be harvested under my current trajectory.  Again, a risk, but one that only I get to choose to make.

Now, the location thing.  In some ways, this is the harder part. There is so much I want to do up here, so many things I want to see and experience and places I want to visit.  Sure I’m as proud as the next and don’t want to alter my course, but the truth is the reason I’m sad to leave has nothing to do with pride: there is so much here that I will leave unfinished; so much that lies open to opportunity and so much I want to do.  I guess that’s true with much of our lives, decisions we make, risks we take; They come at a cost and they don’t come with guarantees.  But these moves are not the consequence of risk; they are the product of choice.

A year and a half ago when I moved up here, I honestly didn’t really know what to expect at all.  Sure I may have had some ideas in the back of my head, but I’ve since learned that many of those ideas were understatements or complete delusions about just what’s going on up here. 

The Pacific Northwest is really a culinary Mecca, of sorts, with fresh local ingredients and fantastic restaurants and dining available everywhere.  People are just more passionate about… well,  everything here.  And as you all know, I try to be passionate about everything in which I have an interest, so there is a natural fit. 

There are literally more than 30 restaurants I really want to try here.  I love the availability of superb coffee and a strong commitment towards the investment and precision that that production requires.  The availability of local craft beers is also a special part of this region I won’t say that people here are more perceptive or sensory or better in any ways, but a unique confluence of factors has created an area where lots of cool things food-related just happen. It's like what I loved about Philadelphia - just huge and diverse (though there are definitely some wonderful thing I still can only find in Philadelphia, which I miss all the time)

The wilderness and scenery up here can be breathtaking – I can’t recall how many times a little drive around the city netted some view or hidden glade or winding road that completely surprised me. I've really tried to take every opportunity to get around the Puget Sound region, often driving on an aimless course, just in the hope that I could find some new treasure nearby.  I have rarely been disappointed.  The hard part is that so much of what I want to do is further away than a 2 hour day trip can provide.  I want to go camping.  I want to drive to Eastern Washington.  I want to hike in the Olympics and in Rainier National Park.  These things take time.  And money.  Both things I don't feel I've been able to allocate during my stay here.  Something that makes me sad.  I have half a dozen weekend trips I want to take to different parts of Washington and Oregon, but without stable and decent-paying employment, they're just things I don't feel I can justify.  That makes me sad.

The sad truth is that when I leave I really won’t have been able explore any of these opportunities at anywhere near the level of detail I might have liked to – I could easily spend another 10 years up here just to work on some of all the wonderful ideas I’ve dreamed up about what I could do.  

My decision to return to California truly came only at the junction of these two decisions and with the aid of a multitude of other factors chiming in.  The funny thing is I think that the risk I am looking at now in making this move may actually be even greater than I took when moving up here.  I could stay here and “make it work”.  I could struggle through, continuing forward without looking back, without asking questions, without heeding my needs or desires.  That’s just not me.  I think that too much of the world spends its life blindly walking forward.  I can’t do that.  Continuing to walk a direction just because I’ve started that way may be a satisfying path to personal success for some, but it never will be one for me.

So, why the change?  Why the reconsideration?  Why the need to defy convention?  Why do I ever do anything, really?  Well, if nothing else has become clear to me, it is that my life is about change and, more importantly, evolution – I’ve changed a lot in the last year and a half.  In other ways, I haven’t changed that much in the last year and a half, I've only refined the trajectory I set myself out on some 8-10 years ago.  I’ve had the opportunity to live alone for the first time in my life and in fact, learned to live very alone, but never really felt alone even though I've felt really alone.  A weird dichotomy that I'd have trouble reconciling in any meaningful way in such a brief posting here.  I have also spent quite a bit of time honing my observation and descriptive skills in sensory experiences: food and wine, photography, even about gym time and learned how little I know about any of those things.  I also realized how many experiences that I want to have that I simply have not had the opportunity to enjoy - time, space, money, desire, all inhibiting their fruition.  I have deeply expanded and reexamined my critical evaluation methods, recognized strengths in my past critique and identified areas that I could improve. 

I have taken time to reconsider and reevaluate views I might have had about many things, but have also naturally evolved my experience through exposure and reflection.   I have begun to understand that for me, holding a strict point of view or position is a convenience I will never enjoy and probably won't want.  I have learned to become much  more strict with myself, but at the same time, learned to indulge.  I have learned to put less weight on the outside world: identifying virtues in simplicity and depravity and restriction, remodeled my perspectives of success and failure (which one I’ve grown much closer to would probably surprise some of you).   I’m sure someone could say there are some deep parallels to some enlightening Eastern religion/spiritual existence (I know there are, in fact), but I don’t care – they are my own decisions, my own growths and they don't enjoy such a framework.

I’m not impressed with myself, if that’s what you’re thinking.  It's not even part of the equation, honestly.  I am pretty happy with my progress though – I recognize the forced perspectives I’ve had to adapt to to come to some of my conclusions and make some of my choices.  I do feel good in that I think I’ve figured something out  – something that many who read this may not even understand.  A series of maxims for my life; rules that sometimes even trump my most basic of social norms.  In fact, even in the wake of realizing the incredible financial costs of the opportunity I am choosing to set aside, I think I have gained something great.  I don’t, however, see it as the end of any roads – I’m not done with anything.  I’m not done changing or evaluating or reconsidering who I am or how I want to be.  I am nearly completely certain that I like the road I’m walking and revel in the truth and splendor that the goal is not to reach the end, but to keep walking it: to ask at every turn; at every fork; and to recognize every chance to stop – and even I choose to avoid that particular stop for a time, it is a place to which I will return.  Sounds kinda poetic, really. 

Maybe it is poetic.  It’s undoubtedly highly idealistic and even takes for granted certain realities.  Maybe there's an eventual goal to share these explorations with others and maybe it'll be a journey that remains intimately personal and unshared.  I'm not going to make any guesses.

So, enough of that particular tangent.  Let's get down to business.  "When?"  Soon.  Maybe the end of August.  More details to follow.  Or not :)

"What I say is true: everyone can cook, but only the fearless can be great."  -Auguste Gusteau, Ratatouille

It is official.  I am now a sardine.  One house, 9 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (one is for the master bath, so it works out to 2 bathrooms for 8 people (+1 - one of my roommate's boyfriends seems to be here all the time) and the last bath for the master room holder).

So why the tightly packed living conditions?  Time for a little story.  This may get long ;-)  (later edit: you may want to grab a glass of water).

It started about two months ago when Elizabeth informed me that she wanted me to find somewhere else to live after finding that having me in the house was turning out to be more than she bargained for.  At that time, I had a lengthy discussion with her trying to ascertain what that actually meant to her and what things were troubling.  I was able to isolate a few things that she was finding difficult to deal with and I made a serious effort to curtail those problems immediately (none of it was very serious and mostly involved me stopping certain types of conversations from starting - as she felt alienated when she couldn't be involved in certain types of discussions Kurt and I would share).  From that point, I made not only a concerted effort to assuage her discomfort, I really tried to do anything that I could to settle the situation and restore peace and indicated that once my family had come and gone, I'd be looking for new housing in short order.  For a while it seemed good.  She even whole-heartedly agreed to have Mom and Leah stay at the Queen Anne house during their visit and was again satisfied with the situation.  Sounds good: I had calmed the storm. 

Things happened.  Not my things, mind you.  Also, these things were not new - most of which preceded my stay.  Elizabeth herself is going through a rough patch of life, the story of which is not mine to divulge, but needless to say, she is going through many trying things.  Some people are able to compartmentalize their frustrations with the source of their grief.  This is not a skill which Ms. Liz excels in.  Once Kurt showed up as the boyfriend, I think she reslotted me to the redundant category - a bothersome person in the house to be tolerated.  This was a sharp change from the halo she had crowned me with for our first month and a half.  Accordingly, I believe that, in her mind, I began to embody the foul, acrid, corrosive, detestable source of all those problems which Ms. Liz was experiencing.  Not all the time, but there were at least two dozen or so moments where she looked at me in a way that told me she saw me as the most loathesome of creatures.  There were little moments of respite too, but the telling trouble occurred approximately 1.5 weeks prior to my family's arrival when Liz said in no uncertain terms: "I need you to find somewhere else to live, as soon as possible."  That prompted my retort: "I can promise that I'll get out of here as soon as I can, but, hmm.. you did say my family could stay here and they are arriving in two weeks."  Liz:"[<grunt> I don't really want them here]".   This particular discussion practically coincided with my Jager Law job termination and prompted the entrance of an important ally: Mr. Kurt Krause, who couldn't understand why there couldn't be a little more accomidation as he was certain she would offer a little leeway in light of my job loss.  No such luck.

I had had it - she can mess with me and treat me as badly as she wants, but I won't have her messing up my special family visit!  So I turned to the most powerful of allies to restore her patients - kindness.  I decided that if I went over the top and did everything possible to show my respect and accommodation, she'd have a hard time playing such hardball.  I knew it was a gamble and that it would likely only have a short window, but it was worth a shot.  So I went to work.  Extra chores around the house, cleaning up after their dishes, taking garbage in and out, absolutely disappearing when I could, eating at strange late hours to avoid any interaction, let alone confrontation, offering to share food and experiences where reasonable, moving my car those extra couple of inches forward so she could have 6 feet of extra room to get her car into the driveway, always leaving the porch light on, folding their laundry, etc, etc.  I set up more electronic crap and did more organizing in those two weeks...  I spent ~10 hours helping out setting upher birthday party, setting it up to show her pictures, taking pictures.  As many of you know, these aren't crazy things and, actually, if it were a different situation, I'd be doing most of those things anyways, but here they were definitely a sacrifice.  The good news is that it seemed to work: A few days prior to Mom and Leah's arrival, Liz's mood had changed (thanks in no small part to a constant reinforcement of the message from Mr. Kurt) and she was being far more accommodating to Mom and Leah and even offered to leave the house for a few days (this didn't actually happen). 

And then, when Leah and Mom showed up, we continued the trend and still tried to be as unobtrusive and invisible as was possible (Leah and Mom were real troopers here) - we all shared the two rooms I had my stuff in and spent as much of their trip as we could away from the house.  Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that Liz was not happy again.  She was ice cold to us much of the time we were around, so the interaction was lessened even further.  She even huffed and said something about being happy that they were gone after they left and again. 

1 step too far, young lady.  I was looking for places to live within the hour, the day Leah left to go home - I had scheduled interviews, made contacts, and spent literally hours on craigslist looking for new housing.  There were some promising opportunities within a few days - this type of thing takes time, probably 2-3 days average from initial contact, meeting, to decision-making.  I visited 5-6 places, a few of which seemed fairly promising if more commitment than I wanted to make given my unemployment status and uncertain future.  At this point, it was totally clear that nothing I could do was good enough for her and she got really ugly.  Accordingly, here's where the timeline gets crazy.

She began with disparaging me and my progress in searching and my staying there at every opportunity.  The housing situation was also going to be changing - her father was to be moving in within a week (yes, all of a sudden - he's 91 and things were happening quickly).  I got a note one morning (Thursday, April 2nd) informing me of this (she never wanted to ask me to do anything as that would involve confronting me, so she always left multi-page notes that had an air of insult, complaint, and irritation about them) asking me to move all of my stuff out of my room and the storage room in the garage by 11:00 am, because people were coming to look at the upstairs rooms.  So I did it all of that (I didn't get finished until like 1:30, but they didn't show up until around 1:00).   And I moved all my stuff from the kitchen.  And I moved all of her stuff from that room into the storage room.  I even tried to make it look decent.  Sure, I was a little pissed but I did it all.  And now the room downstairs where I had been sleeping was absolutely packed with all my belongings.  It was actually kinda nice - I finally had a room that was my stuff, as up until that point, I only had a small place in two rooms. 

When she came home that day (at 11:30 at night, after spending the evening out playing), there wasn't appreciation or understanding, there was an acute complaint that we had to be able to move a large pull out sofabed into that room on Saturday.  Whatever.  I was ready to sleep on a concrete floor at this point as there really was no quality of life there.  So I made additional accommodations, stacking my stuff even higher and finding a place for the couch to go, all the while planning additional housing tours all while trying to maintain a job search. 

Saturday April 4th - things changed again: all of a sudden, they offered that I might be able to housesit her father's place while he was gone.  And they were going to charge me.  They still had to talk about it, but it seemed pretty likely and, being in the tight spot I am financially and housing-wise, I figured it was a pretty good way to hold off on locking myself into something longer term or restrictive.  I put my housing offers on hold while this was discussed over the next 3 days (during all of which the aggressive/passive-aggressive behavior never stopped.  It was really miserable and I really just wanted to get out of there. 

Tuesday, April 7th - Things changed yet again - the father (Robert) wasn't moving in anymore and the house sitting opportunity was gone.  Sadly, so were all my on-hold offers.  I had to start again.  This didn't factor into Ms. Liz's appreciation of the situation - she was wondering why I wasn't already gone, after having offered an alternative solution, which caused me to pause other obligations, and then promptly revoking that offer.  Again, I really just wanted to get out of there but nonetheless began a ~5 hour/day search for new housing.  For the next 3 days, I drove all over the Puget Sound looking at places, none of which were truly satisfying.  I had really no good choices.  Most of the places were shitholes and I felt completely disgusted visiting them.  Others (many of which were also shitholes) required 6 month or greater leases, something which terrifies me given my current fixed "income" and the steadily increasing level of unemployment in Washington. 

Friday, April 10th I had 4 appointments to see 8 different properties (one guy had lots).  No real luck.  The 4th place I went to with the guy (Ryan Tacher, my new landlord) is where I ended up.  It was the newest and least ghetto of the properties.  By no means fabulous and significantly further away from downtown than I wanted to be, but it was cheap and it was relatively clean.  I signed the lease for 6 months at 4:00 PM, completely starving after having run around all day looking at places not having eaten.  I charged home, packed my car double-quick and just as I was about to leave with my first load, Liz and Kurt came home.  Kurt volunteered to help me rent a van from U-Haul and move my mattress and my few larger items.  I came back later and packed up the second load (which was almost everything else - and it could have been if I had planned a little better).  Kurt and Liz left to go out to dinner at this point, Liz giving me a big hug and telling me how much she cared about me as we said goodbye, trying to wipe clean the slate of awkwardness that had been so reinforced in the flurry of chalked hate speech of recent days.  I cordially hugged her back and told her 'how much I appreciated her patience'.  I felt a little dirty for it, but it was better that way.  She's not a bad person, she had just done some pretty nasty things.  I'm much happier keeping an awkward friend that making a spiteful enemy anyways.

Second load ready to go - minor tragedy struck here.  I pulled my car to the top of Liz's driveway and pulled up the parking brake, so I could go down and close the garage door.  Now I had had my parking break looked at while I was having my car worked on a month before and while they did adjust it some, it doesn't completely activate until it is absolutely all the way up.  Unfortunately, I didn't pull it quite to that point and my car began to roll backwards.  Now I have good reaction time and was able to stop it within a few inches.  Again, unfortunately, the door was less than a few inches from the metal railing on the front side of Liz's house and in that brief slide, the two had a rather forceful chance encounter.  The railing rang out like a bell choir and my door frame got a nice little bend at the edge - the door closes just fine, but it looks bad and ruins the air seal slightly.  That made me sad. :(

I dumped the next load at the new place, filling up the last of my small new room's floor space and decided to go back to grab the last few items so that I wouldn't have to come back another day and could be done with the awful situation.  Drove back to Queen Anne to grab the last couple of items and left the house with a sense of freedom.  That was that.  I didn't have to deal with that situation for one more minute.  Phew.  Other situations, sure, but that one was now over with.

So where did I go?  It's an odd place really - a medium sized house that's been converted to accommodate as many people as the owner could squeeze in.  What was probably originally a modestly sized 4 bedroom (~2500 sq ft maybe) became a youth-hostel for 9 bedrooms.  Long, stale hallways with doors.  Coin-op laundry.  Locks.  Keys.  Chaos.  It’s a fairly cold environment and people keep to themselves and run on very different schedules.  One room is still open, but I’ve met 6 of the other 7 people now.  A nurse, a social worker, a coast guard, a couple of computer techs from Staples, a third-year med student on rotation in Tacoma, another guy who I don’t know what does (but I think someone said is gay), and me. 

My room is around 10x8.5 with a small closet and it currently holds everything I own.  When I moved in I thought there would be absolutely no way to fit everything in here, but I spent 3 days converting it from what I have described as a crime scene to now something that more resembles a warehouse.  Sure it's packed and cramped - but now I actually have a little free space on the shelves and could theoretically fit more in here.  Don't give me any ideas.  The closet is jam-packed and all of my kitchen stuff is in my room (the kitchen already has far too many duplicates for me to put my decent/good stuff out there to have it soiled by some careless housemate).  The carpet is stain-free dark brown.  I told the owner he could slaughter animals over it and no one would be the wiser.  He smirked.  I have a window facing East, out to a cemetery, on the other side of which is a major thoroughfare, Aurora Ave.   

Not many seem to use the kitchen much, so I’ve had a pretty good run of it and actually churned out some decent meals.  I don’t know if it’s that bad, but I’ll be straight with you all – I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.   I can only imagine that within a month or two I’ll feel even more certain about this J  But I only pay $485 with utilities and even though I’m locked in for 6 months, I can probably negotiate out of it if I have to.   Sure could be worse, but it could be a lot better.

I posted a little album with a few pictures of my room and the house so you can get a better idea of what I’m looking at.

http://cid-d2ad83b102d2854d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/2009%20-%20April%20-%20The%20Sardine%20Tin

There you are, more than 2800 words later (and two hours of typing) you made it through my story.  It’s a weird time for Danny.  Still looking for work everywhere I can but nothing yet.  I’ve steeled myself for the long haul here – loans deferred, unemployment contacted, all addresses updated, court dates set (for the ticket, of course).  Goals for now:  First: Survive to the end of May when I get to come home back to CA for Jason and Kara’s wedding and other happy things.  Interim: watch an assload of stored up television shows, look for jobs, get to the gym regularly (it’s not as easy to get to here), eat well, get outside when the weather permits (not yet, apparently), keep sane.  Spluh.