New Neighbors

It’s finally time to put up curtains in the windows of my new pad. Up until now, I’ve been enjoying the luxury of facing a row of empty buildings across the street, so there was no worry about peeping neighbors. Which is great, because I haven’t felt like attaching curtain rods to the masonry in the front of my place.

Once again, though, my penchant for low-ish rents in uncool neighborhoods has found me at the crest of yet another wave of hipster migration. (I haven’t dubbed my building “the Cracker Factory” for nothing, you know.) Last week I saw them loading some sheet rock into one of the empty buildings across the street. Last night, I saw all the lights on in there, and the front door standing open. That, my friends, is what an open house looks like.

So Special Agent Josh and I ran over to inspect what they’ve built, and check out whether or not the new tenants would be able to see into my apartment. Sure enough, the factory has been carved into a bunch of modestly sized lofts, with one floor ready to go in a couple of weeks, and two more floors ready in the next couple of months. A decent conversion job, in case you’re interested, and the rents aren’t all that bad. Of course, the street-facing units all have an outstanding view of my desk at the moment, in case you own binoculars and want to see what’s on my screen. The angle would make it hard for my eventual new neighbors (who seemed to be racing to submit their applications last night, even for the units that haven’t been built yet) to see anything else in my place, but this new development would only make me feel weird about people watching over my shoulder when I work.

But the other bloggers are already starting to follow me to the neighborhood, so I figure that if people are coming to the area, I may as well at least try to give any interested friends and readers a heads-up on any opportunities to stalk me.

Achoo!

Without fail, the change of seasons brings on a nasty cold for me. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always following a change in the weather. This time around it came a little later than usual, but I think I was able to hold it off through sheer force of will. Too much to worry about already, too much to do, too many hassles to make time for a cold. I made the tactical mistake, though, of pausing for a moment last week to catch my breath, which pretty much meant I was bound to succumb.

And, also in boringly predictable fashion, my cold started with a series of a half-dozen or so sneezes that come out of nowhere. By the time I’ve blown my nose after the last sneeze, the works have all gummed up, my head feels foggy, and all my energy is gone. From there, it’s just an endless cycle of naps and decongestants until I get back on my feet.

Mmmmmmm, nap, that’d be just the thing right now…

I count my blessings, certainly. I’ll certainly take occasional colds over the dizzying array of mystery ailments that might threaten me if my immune system weren’t in such good shape after years of careful monitoring and medication. It’s always been a dark irony that I was much more of a delicate flower my whole life before I became positive. Strep throat, the ailment that used to hit me about as often as colds do now, hasn’t troubled me in ages, for instance. Maybe the big difference is that I pay more attention now that the potential troubles are so much more serious. I’m far less likely to ignore the little things than when I would blithely assume whatever bug I had would soon pass. Sure it sucks to live with the threat of my system adapting to my drugs and starting to go haywire, and it certainly sucks to be dependent on regular medication to keep me on an even keel, but I guess that’s just my cross to bear.

Yes, I think a nap would be a very fine thing right about now. Pardon me, won’t you?

Friendly Neighborhood Wall-Crawlers

One of the things I really like about the Cracker Factory is the privacy. It’s got thick concrete floors and brick walls (mostly), so I don’t hear my neighbors (much — although the guy upstairs using the power saw at midnight recently is a notable exception). I have big windows, but they don’t face anything except some abandoned buildings across the street (one under renovation, in case anyone wants to be my neighbor eventually), so no one can really see inside and play Peeping Tom.

Except for the guys who showed up on scaffolding outside my big, curtainless windows this morning. I guess they’re sealing the exterior brick, judging by the fumes and the paint rollers. That’s awfully nice to see (the Swanktuary had many charms, but the landlord’s attention to the health of the building itself was not one of them), but it’s very, very unnerving to turn around and see two guys suddenly appear outside my second-story windows. My desk faces away from the window, so it’s a creepy feeling to have them watching my back while they putter around. Granted, it makes me focus on my work, like having the boss stand behind you urging you to be productive, but still…

Of course, those guys are my new best friends, and not just because they saw me in my underwear this morning. (Are you jealous?) No, just as I started thinking about this entry they tapped on the window to offer to fix my heater, with which they noticed me struggling this morning. So now I have heat, waterproof exterior walls, and two new friends who speak Russian and look like the Super Mario Brothers. Awesomeness! (No sarcasm there, by the way — it’s awesomeness!)

Home Again

I’ve been feeling the strain of doing little more than working, moving, running errands, and carrying stuff around for over a month now, but at least things are finally settling down. I think. At any rate, the new digs are starting to feel like a new home, and I’m not feeling quite so guilty, sad, and mad all the time. (N.B.: The Neil Sedaka was absolutely correct when they said, “Breaking up is hard to do.”)

See how quickly a moderately sized open room fills up with stuff:

Continue reading “Home Again”

Snafu You

It’s time for me to start thinking about grad school applications again, since I still have a glimmer of hope that hasn’t been crushed yet. (It’s amazing how much mileage my morale got out of making it onto SVA’s waiting list this year.) Trying to get my act together, I’ve been sending away for course catalogs of new possibilities, and calling places to whom I’ve applied before to find out what I need to resubmit.

Now, if you’ve been following these adventures for a while (a sure indication that you’re a relative, have a high tolerance for boredom, or both), you know that I moped a lot when I didn’t get in last time, so it’s taken some pluck to give them a call again and set things in motion once more. I wanted to make sure they still had my transcripts and stuff on file, and whether anything I previously submitted would still count toward a new application. The very helpful lady on the phone pulled my file and said it was all in order, but I was free to resubmit anything I’d like to update. While she was checking through the recommendations, though, she mentioned that there were only two of the manadatory three. It seems that my boss from my old job never sent in her recommendation letter, which means my application never got a fair shot. Good grief.

OK, maybe the letter just got lost in the mail, but still…

That pisses me off, but at least it lets me believe that it’s less my fault and more someone else’s, and so I feel a little more confident about applying again. And I’m also reapplying to SVA, since I got as far as I did last time, and I’m looking at some programs in England and the Netherlands that just teach typeface design, because I need to embrace my true geekitude once and for all.

Going to conferences like TypeCon or the AIGA conference are always good for pulling me out of the day-to-day doldrums and reminding me just how passionate I am about all this stuff. Aside from the more pragmatic benefits of grad school (the pedigree will help my teaching career, and it’ll give me access to bigger jobs and better connections, blah blah blah), I get giddy thinking about grad school as a way to totally immerse myself in design stuff for an extended period of time, and worry about my own goals and parameters and interests instead of whether a client likes blue or feels like taking a chance on something.

By the way, if I get into a program this time, holler if you have an extra few tens of thousands of dollars lying around that you don’t need.

Blog Star Confidential

[Note: this article was published on the now-defunct New York Blade web site. I have reposted it here for posterity.]

For New York’s gay blogging elite, it’s more than just a phase

By JAMES WITHERS

Bradford Shellhammer has a few choice words about the state of the blogosphere. First, he says, the current glut of new blogs means trouble for readers: There are too many options and few worth reading. What’s worse, everybody who has something to peddle now has a blog.

But don’t expect too much nostalgia from Shellhammer, a New York blog star whose juicy online dispatches date back to 2000, about the good old days before hype hit the blogosphere. 

Continue reading “Blog Star Confidential”

Two Left Hands

Best part of the conference so far? The on-stage battle between Rep. Barney Frank and John Hockenberry about, effectively, which of them is more liberal than the other. Barney Frank has the impassioned viewpoint of a long-term public servant, Hockenberry has the impassioned view of a long-time public commentater. Drama! And big ideas that are not navel-gazing design ideas, which is what I like best at these conferences.

Two huge liberal with big opinions battling out the nuances of what’s the most liberal stance to take on important issues? That feels so Dutch, don’t you think?