Float

Yesterday, I was interviewed by a writer for the New York Times Magazine. It's for a story that has to do with new media, including True/Slant, where I blog at Off the Record.

During the course of the interview, the writer asked me about how some of the other bloggers at True/Slant were apparently using their opportunity at this relatively new venue to transition into a new subject. They were carving out a new niche. And when he asked me about that, if that was something I was doing, I realized I had completely forgotten that was my original intention.

For the past few months, especially in recent weeks, I've had a hard time moving forward on a new long-term project that I've referred to a few times here over the last six months or so. For a time, Chris Bishop was illustrating, designing, and building it, but about a week ago, he finished.

And then, there it was again, and someone asking, well, what about that?, and I had sort of forgotten, and I didn't really know what to say. I stammered something to the effect of, well, yes, I had wanted to change, and then, in one way or another, he asked me, well, why hadn't I, moved forward on this new project, and in my head, I thought, I don't know.

I thought about explaining that it was for personal reasons, but in the context of an interview, that would have sounded like I was saying, well, I'm not going to discuss that with you, although, had I said it, that's not what I would have meant. I would have meant, Because I find myself unable to move forward on it, and I don't know why.

Which is how I end up writing things like this.

I wish I wasn't conflicted. Sometimes I think the only reason I am conflicted is because I have the luxury of being so. Internal conflict is a real first-world problem, isn't it? Real conflict, on the other hand, affords you nothing. It points at the decision and screeches MAKE IT, so you do.

What it is

"[I]t's very hard to do some extraordinary triumph without taking some extraordinary risk or making an odd judgment that other people would not make. That’s why the triumph is extraordinary." -- Penelope Trunk

I think one of the reasons -- well, the reason, actually -- that I am having such a hard time deciding where to live next -- by way of example, not long after I wrote that post about wanting to move to NYC, I took a walk and decided that what I really wanted to do was move back to Los Angeles -- is because I don't really want to live anywhere. I would like to live everywhere.

A few years ago, something happened, and, for a while, I didn't have anywhere to live. I had a carry-on bag, one of the small ones, of clothes, and that was it. My best friend took me in, paid for my plane ticket to fly me to her, and put me up in her son's room in the attic, where I slept in his red race car bed. The ceiling was a constellation of glow-in-the-dark stickers.

As it turns out, the inclination is to master it by repeating it. In a way, I don't really want to live in LA or NYC; I want to live nowhere. Today, I got an email from this guy I don't know. "Sometimes the most important place to live is in yourself," he wrote. That's about right, I thought.

I love hotels. For their transience. You live in this weird kind of limbo, and food gets brought to the door, and every once in a while, you peer out between the curtains, and see what's going on: the cars crawling up the street, the skyscraper lights blinking in the night, the landscape you don't know blanketed by the snow.

Years ago, I drove across the country. Or, mostly, anyway. From California to Chicago. It was crazy, to see the country like that. The big Montana sky, and the endless Iowa fields, and the dry Nevada desert. The Mississippi River took my breath away. The Faulkner story had come alive before me.

I want to get rid of everything. I want to be unmoored. If I can get to nowhere, I'll be somewhere.

Not for the cheesesteaks

I've continued my internal debate over where to move. Every once in a while in this life, I like to move. Expands my brain, my body, my life. I'm a cat with nine lives. How many left? Who knows.

The itinerary thus far. Los Angeles: Done that. Bay Area: Never going back. New Orleans: Nearly killed me. Chicago: The cold did me in. Honolulu: So expensive, I fled.

Where next? Thought about DC. Too pricey. Too conservative. NYC beckons. But more expensive than I can stand at this point.

I want to live in a major city.

So, last night, it occurred to me: Philadelphia, maybe?

Pros: Cheaper than NYC. No car. Sustainable.

Cons: Crime. Blight. The like.

Northern Liberties seems to be the place to be, no?

If you've got helpful and positive insight, drop me a note.

Sublet

A possible sublet in the West Village looms upon the horizon. It's all still up in the air, but moving to NYC seems closer daily. This would enable me to get up there, then find a place there, rather than try and find a place there from here, which isn't easy.

I can't say "I've wanted to move to New York since ..." because I don't remember a time when I didn't want to live there. My father grew up in Flatbush, in Brooklyn, so I've lionized it since, well, forever.

To live there would be like a dream that you couldn't quite let yourself dream, and then you dreamed it, and then it turned out it wasn't a dream at all -- it was real.

Apartment

I'm looking for an apartment in NYC. In the Village or Brooklyn, ideally. Got a lead? Email me! susannahbreslin [at] earthlink [dot] net.

Poll

Ever since I stopped writing about you know what all the time, I have no idea what to blog about. In the meantime, I can't decide whether to move to NYC or DC next, probably in January.

In that spirit, I created a poll, which can be found in the left-hand sidebar of this blog. Since I couldn't make up my mind, I figured I'd let random strangers decide.

Your choices are: a.) NYC, b.) DC, and c.) Mars. If you all vote for Mars, I guess I'll have to do some additional research. If you all choose either NYC or DC, I'll move wherever wins. The poll decides at midnight on New Year's Eve.

Remember, my future is in your hands. Vote with reckless impunity.

Have a great weekend, because you're awesome, and you voted.

NYC

Having an amazing time in NYC.

Plan is to move here early next year.

I. Can't. Wait.

Moving

In the early part of next year, I'll likely be moving. To either NYC or DC. But I can't decide which one. DC would enable me to do a new project that I've had in mind for some time. NYC would be, well, a dream.



I don't remember a time when I didn't want to live in NYC. My father grew up in Brooklyn, in Flatbush. I love it because it is larger than life, like me.



DC is sort of like the opposite of everything I know. Cold as fuck. Built like a prison. A weird kind of wunderkammer, if you dig deep enough in the right spots.



For a while, I was hoping I would return to LA, but it seems like that's not going to happen. The old life is dead. The only question that remains is where the new one begins.