there have been quite a number of things revolving around this site that make me think. by think, i mean consider for more than 3 minutes. at a time.

the first revolves around the people who write on this site. over the last 9 years, its been quite a large number of people — look at the listing of people (down at the bottom of the page). its a good count. people have stopped for various reasons — time, lack of interest, lack of content, hurt feelings and goodness knows what else.

it sucks.

if i could have these people back, writing and talking and sharing, i would. ray and i chug along these days, with scatterings from others. petunia, someone who would easily give me a run for my money in frequency of posts, has become more and more irregular. keren and i had a fight and she stopped posting. we are doing ok now, but she hasn't resumed her wonderful drawings. i stepped on matthew's toes once too often i think and he too has focused elsewhere. goose and andru are in the ether. same with bitzao. carter doesn't think she wants to expose herself so intimately online. chrispy ran out of steam along with mike. kurt…well, he writes on the full moon.

i didn't mean to start running down the list. my point was more that things have changed a lot over the last 9 years and much of the frenetic energy that we threw around 5 or 6 years ago seems to have disappeared. now we use it for managing other relationships. or working. or sleeping. or something other than this.

i think part of it is also that writing has become more important to me, while becoming less important to others. mike has stopped mostly, petunia never did become the book editor. carter is doing enough design now that her creative needs are met. and then there is me, still chugging along, writing a lot. (and ray, which might explain why the two of us post often.)

that's a second point. today somehow marks the first time in months that i have not had a book to read on my way home from work. the first time i haven't had a book to tear through quickly, before it is due at the library. 'generation x', 'teeth', 'iv', 'killing yourself to live', 'jpod' , the first half of 'death note', the first bit of 'seductress'…and i know there is one or two others sneaking in there somehow. ive been a reading machine. sadly, this has diverted me from being a writing machine.

yes, for the last 2 months or so, my writing has been at a standstill. the good news though is this: my to-do list is small right now. hank is about to act as my editor on my second book. my first book was entered in amazon's breakthrough novel contest. i need to revisit query letters for both of these novels very soon.

but the first book will be out in some fashion in 2008. and ill do my damnest to get the second one out in '08 as well. or at least have it to an agent. and my third will be done. and the fourth will be well underway.

the point though, was that ive been reading a lot. and i feel refreshed from the spree and feel like putting many words down again on paper. or on the screen.

but, because, i was reading, i wasn't doing much in terms of other output. so there was less work on the site, less paying attention to it as much as i would have liked. yes, i picked up my posting frequency, but my posts are still an odd mix of diary entries, links and half-baked pop culture stuff. so i want to polish all of these things up and push hard to make sure the things i put up are worth reading.

and part of that is making sure the site is the way it should be. i'm unsure what that means exactly, beyond making sure i work to tweak it into an enjoyable experience. something nice to look at, nice to use. i smell a small redesign coming on. i smell a lot more of the static content that used to hang out up here. i smell video.

or maybe its just my feet.

either way, the third point is that i'm very open to ideas, suggestions and anything else you want to throw at me. i said this a while ago, which prompted kurt to write me a mythical email, one he never sent but has referenced to me several time. his idea, it seems, is that i should kick everyone off out of here and focus myself. it ain't gonna happen. the best that might happen is that i set up another sandbox for myself. but it is an interesting concept, even if i dont agree with the execution.

***

this should have been thrown up yesterday, but i didn't log on once i got home from work. (gasp). instead we finished watching helvetica and then kurt and john came over for 2 episodes of season 4 of the wire. we are down to the last 2 now; i think we will finish it tomorrow.

for the record, there is nothing like watching it while kurt screams every 3 or 4 minutes, furious at the writers for manipulating his emotions and making him very upset over outcomes.

why am i so obsessed with the divorce of a couple i don't even know? maybe it's because i lurrrrve her blog and she's never mentioned a thing about the dissolution of her marriage and now all of a sudden it's over. i find myself being all "sixth sense" about it and back-tracking, looking for clues.

last weekend i hung out with an old…hahaha, can i use the word flame? (total neely o'hara lingo!) i was presented with the opportunity for a hookup and said flame seemed surprised when i was a complete no-go. i have hooked up before with a taken fellow…or four*… but draw the line at being the cheateR. does this seem surprising, or hypocritical? he seemed surprised. does this mean i should throw away my "slut" necklace?

* not simultaneously

a looking glass book

so i used to have a blog over on the usc site; set up mainly to help with my thesis. then i floundered for a bit and wasnt doing a lot of video work.

but im back in the fold, as many of you know. i'm doing a lot of video work now, along with web application development and social networking stuff.

so i moved the content over here, where i can keep a more firm grasp on it and have started throwing up development related things on the research subdomain.

you're more than welcome over there, but it will certainly be more nerdy in a computer/media way that mog is for me. least this way you wont have to listen to thoughts on the internet, video online and php. well, anymore than you already do.

***
Solving the Korean Stalemate, One Step at a Time - New York Times

as an aside, a really good opinion piece about north korea by jimmy carter. worth reading, via kottke

hi kids. im really going to make an effort to be a better poster. i dont know if that will happen because frankly, im just not getting the sense of relief or release that i used to get from posting. a lot of that is due to the fact that my father reads this and refuses to stop, and because most of my friends know that i keep this blog and thus i cant discuss difficult situations (generally, relationships) on this site anymore. the things i gain from journal-keeping are not always meant for every person in my life to read, which is what im making available when i post to the web. im not as open or non-chalant as tripp is; i dont feel that my personal life should be an open door to the world. however, i do gain from reading others' blogs and thus feel that perhaps someone could gain something from reading mine…if nothing else, friends gain the ability to know what is going on with my life in general.

i dropped off the face of the earth this summer and i am not sure when i will resurface. it began last semester when i became completely consumed with school. school merged into a month of drinking, packing my apartment and studio, saying good-bye to graduating second years, and visiting tripp in mountain view, along with colleen's wedding. colleen's wedding merged into me staying in san francisco for the summer, which was a series of its own challenges: finding two jobs, living in two apartments, navigating a new city, and beginning a relationship with someone for whom i came to care a great deal. weekends were filled with brunches, visits with my brother, world cup, tahoe, yosemite, and runs by the marina and crissy field. before i began working, i was running five days a week. after i got a job, i became less active. then i dislocated my shoulder in tahoe and became a vegetable. by the time i went to yosemite, i was well enough to go running and life weights at the gym, thought bench press was difficult. this week i did my first push-ups since tahoe. my shoulder still hurts, but it i think i have my full range of motion back.

because of how much has filled my life since january, i have had less time to be in touch with friends. whereas i used to feel like i was the one emailing people to catch-up and say hello, i have become the passive friend. i am hoping the next semester will provide some clarity to my life, my priorities, and my energy and ability to keep in touch with those close to my heart but far from my home. i dont want to be mia.

i am not looking forward to school, which seems to be a general trend among the second years. the last year of graduate study in design at yale is the most difficult and perhaps the most fulfilling, but it is surely the year that provides the least motivation to do well. sure, we all want a great thesis, but we also want to get on with our lives and live wherever we'll live and be with significant others and make money for a change. not just that, but im sure we're all a bit tired of seeing the same 30 people 24hrs/day. three years of that has its benefits — these are surely the best years of my life so far — but it is hard to return to a place where no one is excited to be and where everyone wants to get out of asap.

i do have to remind myself that i am embarking on the most challenging and rewarding year of grad school. i will work with advisors who are well-respected and well-known in the design community and their guidance will uundoubtedly be invaluable. at yale, it seems we all bitch a lot about what is wrong with the program and our professors… yet we're some of the luckiest designers in the country: we pay a shitload of money (perhaps quite a bit too much), but we get to work with some of the best designers in the world. i can easily say that greer allen and karl martens have enriched my world not just through their design knowledge but their personal kindness as well. it's an honor to have karl sit at my desk and help me fight my own demons. it's a blessing to ride in a car with greer and talk with him about virginia and uva and charlottesville and paper-making and his life with books. perhaps i prefer that talking on steady ground (greer was a crazy driver), but regardless, im lucky. it's of course also amazing to work with linda and armand and paul and tobias and matthew. dan michaelson has encouraged me to create forms that i never would've considered possible without his help. these are things i will look back on and cherish… it really is pretty incredible to feel comfortable calling these designers by their first name and to learn from them.

with that said, i can only say that this year will be a challenge. i do not know where i will live when i graduate and i am obsessing over that thought at the moment. i just feel so torn. it is a blessing to have freedom to choose a place to live but it is also a lot of pressure to choose well, since there will be no one to blame but myself if i pick wrong.

earlier this summer, i sat in the jetblue terminal at jfk writing this post. i was sad when i went to california because i was leaving my boys at school and i knew they wouldnt be back in the fall. then, leaving california i was sad to leave one boy in particular. i flew into the same jetblue terminal at 6am and was quite sad to be back on the east coast. even worse, i came home to an apartment destroyed by my subletter (that's another story altogether), and i was terribly frustrated to be in my apartment. now, im leaving virginia to return to CT, sitting in another jetblue terminal, and im sad to be leaving here, sad to be going back to CT, sad to be at an indecisive moment in my life. but these are the things of growth… change has to come if anything can grow or become better or more fulfilling. chin up, per usual. i should recognize this moment in my life as a blessing and not a curse.