Fairly a Fairy Tale

For the last few years, my best friend has been a girl.  Not just a girl, a specific girl with whom I have been madly in love with.  I even have gone as far as professing her to be my future wife.  Over those years, we’ve talked on the phone, over the internet, and occasionally seen each other in person.  It wasn’t ideal but when is ideal part of the equation when you’re falling in love…

For the past sixth months, I rarely went more than a few hours without talking to her.  Via text, twitter, and IM – we would keep each other up to date on the very minutia of each passing moment of time.  When night time came, we would have skype dates where we would talk about our days, share our successes, and learn from our failures.  She was absolutely perfect. She was my best friend. I knew, without a doubt in my heart, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Of course, life wasn’t without its share of pratfalls and distance was not kind to us.  First it was Albany, NY and Boulder, CO.  Then Houston, Tx and Boulder.  Then New York City and Houston.  No matter what happened, we just seemed to not be able to get our cards in line.  So we dated other people.  We still talked as much as before – if not increasing the frequency as our conversations became integral to our daily lives.  I would tell her that it’s all part of the plan.  I would tell her that we belonged together.  She started to agree.  She started to believe.

She visited me a few weeks ago.  We spent the weekend together and, ultimately, achieved a level of intimacy that we never shared before.  I told her “I love you.”  She said those same words back to me.  We frolicked in the blissful hues of young love.  We talked of future plans – her work was bringing her to Albany again.  We would be closer than ever before.  We would be able to give this a shot when she moved here.  We talked of planning – weekend visits, summer in the city; intoxicating each other in all things beautiful about love and sex and everything in between.

Sometime between our last phone call and the break up call, things changed.  She told me she was no longer planning on moving to Albany.  She told me she no longer shared the same vision.  She told me she met someone else.

Now, I don’t want to wax poetic about someone so fickle that they can tell someone that they love them and a few weeks later change their entire plans around just like that.  It’s not worth it and, ultimately, neither is she.  Still, there’s something very beautiful about settling into the soft soliloquies of sadness.  The focus not being the girl, or fairy tale plans aborted, but the emotional power that ultimately fuels us all.

I told only a handful of girls that I loved them during the past decade.  The only relationship of those that didn’t end in disaster is the one whose shirt pattern adorns the background of this blog’s header.  Sarah’s the only one whose breakup wasn’t because of lack of trust, other people, or the thousands of other things that leave people crippled and broken hearted.  Ours was simply circumstance – as she moved to Washington D.C. and out of my life.  Ironically, she lives 5 blocks south of me now.  What I learned from our recent retrospective talks is that relationships run their course.  It’s what you take away from them that matter.   Right now, I wonder what I’ll be taking away from this one…

So, single life in NYC will be interesting.  I mean – technically I was “single” which is the same designation that I have had for years.  Yet, this girl was ever-present.  My growing love for her was constant and, ultimately, got in the way of other relationship possibilities along the way.  So, now unencumbered except for a slightly sullen heart, I wonder what the world beyond has in store.  I’m a hopeless romantic with a hardened cynical streak.  I wonder which part will get reinforced during the next few months. Will I be bitter and not believe in true love anymore or will I be able to be Paul Varjack looking for his Holly Golightly?  And what if I can’t find Cat?  It’s raining…  These are the things that I am thinking about now.

Obviously – I’m close to the rambling stage now.  I’ve been up all night and I really don’t see much chance for sleep tonight.  Which is fine – I usually can run off endorphins for a day or two.  Tuesday or Wednesday might be tough.  I’m sure I’ll put together some more random musings over the next few day.  I find it apropos that the minute I decide I am going to be more authentic and real on this blog is the minute I have an emotional event in my life kick the writer in me into “confessional mode.”  I guess, ultimately, I took the expressway back to being a blogger.  A real one.  One of my favorite tweets ever was from my friend Erin.  She wrote, “I’m not a wuss.  I’m just sensitive.  I will kick your ass.  I will just cry doing it.”  I’m at the point where I don’t care if my emotional thoughts get published to the masses.  I am who I am and I’m comfortable with it.  These are just my thoughts.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below…

Retrospection – Part Two

Once upon a time, almost ten years ago, I rang in the new millenium from Times Square. It’s funny to think that, by flashing forward 10 years, I’ll basically will have only moved cross town. Of course, the journey to get here – that cross town traffic, if you will – has combined for an amazing series of events that I can’t help but want to be introspective about. With me, introspection always is accompanied by music. After all, I wrote in a lonely, long lost blog on December 25th, 1999 – “They say the sense of smell is the most nostalgic. “They” never had my music collection.”

I know, I know – that’s a bit cheesy but it’s apropos to what I have always attempted to convey with my personal blog writing. Whether it was old journal entries with song quotes as a forward, my Wurtzelian style was predicated on the fact that, while I may have a certain strength as a wordsmith, I am only offering a glacial tip to the emotive mass that lay behind those keystrokes. For those of you who have been reading me for the past ten years, for those of you who have conversed with me about personal things, for those of you who have actually helped me through it all – you know what I’m talking about.

Carlos Santana once said that Music is all around us, and the musicians were just translators. What about those of us who fail to create music? I feel immersed in the language and, while I am not conversational, perhaps I find a deeper meaning being lost in translation?

My taste for music has definitely changed over the past decade. In 2000, I was enjoying the musical meanderings of Phish, the rebellious positivity of Blackstar, the organic hip hop of The Roots. My love for Hip Hop would swell and grow while I cast aside the Jam Band love that I had. I soon discovered real roots in the americana sound of Alt-Country – with the Tweedy lilt leading the way via Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and the various bands he’s worked in. Indie Rock shortly morphed from there to where I basically stand today. I carry all of these timbres within me – I still listen to many of the albums that I loved during each year of my life. I think that’s a good metaphor for life. You carry with you the things from you past. You may change your perspective on how you view them, but ultimately they morph into a part of you. Here is my “off-the-top-of-my-head” list of albums for each year of the past decade:

2000: D’angelo – Voodoo
2001: The Strokes – Is this it?
2002: Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003: The Postal Service – Give Up
2004: Arcade Fire – Funeral
2005: Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
2006: Girl Talk – Night Ripper
2007: Radiohead – In Rainbows
2008: She & Him – Volume One
2009: Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

Are these the best albums of the decade? No – many of them don’t even represent the best albums of the year for their respective years. But they are a glimpse into my head, into my heart, to a place where music has a personal connection to certain parts of my life. Each of these albums I still listen to very frequently. They are part of my collective subconscious because I have listened to them so many times. Other albums from the past decade have joined their ranks. The catalog runs deep and, one day, when I have a lot more time to write and contemplate, perhaps I will share my breakdown of music by the year. If you want to get to know me a bit more, get to know these albums. You won’t be disappointed.

Retrospection – Part One

If I knew then what I know now, I wonder how different my life would be. Would I live my life over again – as in repeating the same mistakes? In regards to the matters of the heart – perhaps not. But, when you reminisce about the past, it can’t help but bring back the kind of emotions that you haven’t thought of in years. In the last 10 years, I’ve said “I love you” only a handful of times. I felt the pangs perhaps a few times more than that (or maybe a few times less than that). In retrospect, les amours of my life will be seen as much of the defining motivations of my life. They brought me to places that I never wanted to be, places that I needed to go; there and back again. I couldn’t have grown without them and without this flawed heart that I wear on my sleeve.

Long ago, when I was making merry, unemployed, basically homeless, but writing and living here in New York, I was reveling in the fact that my world was an emotional mess. My life, as it were, was falling to pieces. With that came inspiration. With that came a muse. While my fingers may have been inspired, what wasn’t was my soul. With pain, one feels the desire to do to things: to create or to destroy.

“There are events which possess a man and which live on perpetually. In the confines of memory, a man can return to these moments over and over again – withdrawing them at times of convenience. Conversely, there are moments of memory that dance upon the cerebral cortex – which no man is ever truly able to possess. They can not be documented, notarized, assessed or quantified. They merely exist as apparitions that guide a man’s will blindly. This is how I remember New York.”

I created a lot back then. I swore to myself, “This is not about love.” But on those gray days back in an old New York that feels like it never existed, those creations were all for naught. With each keystroke, I created words but destroyed emotion. I wrote not to create but to rewrite – rewrite the current existence filled with so much pain. I was destroying what I knew of love with each romanticized love note to a girl who was, in many ways, a product of that creative mind of mine.

I return now to New York a different person. If I could just do thing, it would be to attempt to create what I strived to create back all those years ago. It is now, without pain and emotion, that I feel I can finally capture that muse. Unfortunately, it alludes me now. Still, as I stare out the window of my Alphabet City apartment, I feel closer to that muse than I have in a long time. Muscle memory will take over. Perhaps it starts with a night like this – a night filled with the click clack of my computer’s keypad as I type out feverishly this retrospection. Perhaps this is where the muse is taking me now. Either way, I feel that I finally have the ability to create without destroying. I have the ability to embrace the muse once again.

So, on this post-holiday night, I’ve been hanging around my apartment in the various stages of writing: namely the not writing stage. The muse is elusive and, while I can scrounge enough mana from her to gather these lonely words, I am fraught with the fear that I won’t be able to create the landscapes and images that reside in my head. The past decade of my life has been one that I have shared with so many people through my writing, and as it closes, I can’t help but feel like that skill is in slow decline. What will the next decade bring? Will I still be able to gather the appropriate words to share my feelings. The next decade will bring new experiences and I feel that I need to take proper care, take notes, document diligently all the things that happen to me. While this past decade has been documented as well – it’s scattered pages strewn throughout the internet in various forms of nom-de-plumes – it has never been collected in one place. I guess this retrospection is providing me with the goal to create that one place where the next decade can reside. I guess that’s why I’m here writing tonight when I can’t think of anyplace other to write. I guess that’s what building a home is really like. So, like the great twenty-first century philosopher Jay-Z once said, “You could of been anywhere in the world, but you’re here with me. I appreciate that…”

Best of 2009: Best Conference/Workshop #best09

It was a year of conferences and workshops for me. From nearby places like Boulder and Fort Collins to faraway destinations like Austin, Chicago, San Jose, and New York – my world was a whirlwind tour of conferences that stimulated the mind (sometimes) and inspired the heart (all the time).

Like most stories, I can’t help but start at the beginning. The first conference I went to – on the first weekend of 2009 – was Chicks who Click. It was my first public appearance as the Crocs social media guy and it started with a bang. I didn’t know too many people in person there – I think just Gwen Bell – but instantly I connected with online friends. The list of IRL friendships that started at CWC is amazing: Wayne Sutton, Lucretia Pruitt, Jen Fowler, Barbara Jones, Doyle Albee, Denise Smith, Amy Turn Sharpe, Kit Seeborg, Aimee Giese, Zena Weist…ahh, the list is so long, I know I’m forgetting people so I’ll just stop and apologize to those that I forgot. Heck, I even kind of dated someone I met at the conference – so that should show how amazing it was. Needless to say, these personal friendships that were cultivated from the online world have powered so much of the great things that have happened to me over the past year. It was amazing and has to instantly top the best conference of the year for me.

Best of 2009: Best Night Out #best09

I have repeatedly tried to write the opening sentence of this blog post chronicling the “best night out of ‘09” and ultimately end up erasing each aborted attempt. 2009 was a year filled with night outs – drunken camaraderie, serious life altering conversations, voyeuristic voyages in and around Boulder – whatever the night entailed, I enjoyed each and every one of them in such different ways that, to put them in any sort of hierarchy would not do the other night’s justice.

Instead, I’ll write about all the night’s combined. In the ethereal bliss that is memory, all those special nights of last year have melded together as one. The rising and setting of the sun, the changing of seasons, the trespass of time play no role in them. Whether it was that snowy night at the end of last winter where I soldiered around with a group of mostly strangers looking for the next party. Strangers like Matt and Monika who would come to be a part of so many night’s out over the passing months. Then there was Keg’s and Kites – put on by Stepan, Ef and myself – that brought James Baber into our collective lives. There were night’s where I wasn’t around yet are etched into my memory – like when Stepan got sick at the lazy dog after a few to many. There were quiet nights with Vanessa at home – making G & V show episodes, laughing, and making memories that I will cherish forever. Even now, here in New York, I’ve had nights where I just enjoyed the company I was with. Hanging out with Pete and watching Chris’s band perform at Arlene’s basement; meeting the mayor of San Antonio with Julia, Josh introducing me to $.10 wing night at Croxley’s, building our apartment’s table with Ariel. When it comes to the adventures I’ve had this year, time is no longer linear – but merely a symphony that continuously harmonizes with the notes that came before it. Thank you to all my friends that made this year so amazing.

Best of 2009: Best Trip and Best Restaurant Visit #best09

I’m participating in my friend Gwen Bell’s “Best of 2009″ Blog Challenge.  I’m a day late, but without Internet in the apartment and a busy work life, it’s tough to write consistently.  2009 was probably one of the fastest years of my life – so many things happened, so many changes, and yet it was all positive – a surge of momentum that started 11 months ago and hasn’t ceased yet.  So – not only do I want to do this “Best of 2009″ challenge, I need to.  I need to remember 2009 for those years in my life that will prove to be a bit more challenging.  I will need to remember this year for what it brought me.

So, without further a do, the first two updates in the challenge:
December 1st – Best Trip of 2009.

I traveled more in 2009 than I have in any other year of my life.  According to Tripit.com – I went on 9 trips, spanning 32 days, 15,200 miles and 7 cities.  That doesn’t even cover all my trips as I was far too lazy to update Trip It all the time.  Still – that gives a bird’s eye view of the kind of traveling that I was doing this year.  Most of it being in the latter half of the year – as I was doing things for work, traveling for job interviews, and just attempting to enjoy the life of a jet setter.

Still – the best trip I went on all year was easily my visit to Austin for South By South West Interactive.   I chronicled the trip here on my blog – SXSW – and it was simply an amazing time.  That trip alone has impacted my life in so many ways – personal friendships that blossomed, professional relationships that have helped pave the way for me in my career, amazing parties that were fun, and intellectually stimulating panels that showed me benchmarks for my own personal potential.

I’m not much of a photographer (hopefully that will change in 2010), so I don’t have too many photos from my time in Austin.  Still, the memories burn brightly inside my head and in my every day life.  I feel like I don’t go a week without having a conversation about the events of those days in Texas.

December 2: What is your Best Restaurant Moment of 2009?

This is a hard one to answer because, at the end of the day, I pretty much eat at restaurants every day.  The horrible cook in me and the lazy man combine for quite the expensive “out on the town” line item in my monthly budget.  Still, living in Boulder, there were so many great restaurants that jump to the front of my mind.  The Med.  The Kitchen.  My personal favorite – Brasserie 1010.

Brasserie will probably go down as my favorite restaurant moment because it’s one of the biggest things that I think I will miss now that I’m living in New York.  Sure, I’ll be able to find the quality of food here in the city.  I may even be able to find something at a reasonable price, but that I’m not banking on it.  Still, nothing will be the same as Brasserie.

Which brings me to my favorite moment – because the challenge wasn’t to find your favorite restaurant, but find some moment that will forever be trapped in the amber of your memory.  That moment for me is brunch with An Bui.  An was a new friend that I made this year and the first girl that I’ve ever gone to brunch with that….well, let’s just say An and I were 100% just friends, and yet we still shared brunch.  The majority of our friendship actually occurred around food – we ate dinner together a bunch of times – yet the first time we went to brunch was heavenly.  The food was amazing.  The conversation was stimulating.  I just remember thinking to myself that I was going to really dig hanging out with An in Boulder.  Little did I know I would be moving away a few months later.  I miss the occasional brunch date that An and I had.  And that longing stems from that first time.  It was easily the best restaurant trip for me in 2009.  Thanks An!  Looking forward to our next dinner or brunch together!

So that’s the start of the Challenge.  The posts might come in bunches (again – no internet!) but I will do all 31 so I will have something to look back on that summarizes 2009!  Looking forward to reading everyone else’s as well.

Tweet Clouding the Past Year: Post Birthday Thoughts

There’s nothing like a Birthday to cause a little self-reflection.  What better way to reflect on my past year that with a techy tool.  Thanks to my friend Julia, I discovered this nifty little toy Tweet Cloud.  It’s a textual analysis of your twitter stream – pulling in the words and phrases that you’ve used the most over a set period of time.  I went with looking at the past year and what I found is located in the cloud to the right.  Take a look at it.  It’s a beautiful thing that captures what the past year has really been – positive energy, laughter, friends and people.  This has been an amazing year – one of the best of my life – and it’s nice to see that, through Twitter, I was able to convey so much of that positivity.

I’m sure over the next week – especially once I get settled in my apartment here in New York – I’ll take more time to reflect on where I am in my life.  I figure, I’ve pretty much have taken the self-reflective route after every birthday for the last 15 years (I was a very introspective teenager), so I doubt that will truly change.   What will change is that all the plotting that I have done with my life is starting to take shape.  As a writer, I always daydreamed about being able to craft the narrative of my life.  The one thing that I’m learning is that I truly can.  Sure, I can’t control anything but, with the right mindset, it’s unbelievable the things that you can control.  The past year has been a testament to that – with almost everything going according to the blueprint I crafted a little over a year ago – a year filled with so many positive things, but the biggest one in the cloud is the most important: Love.

A Real Community: Prayers for Anissa

Over the last few months, mainstream media has questioned “Mommy Bloggers” and the ethics around it. There have been FTC regulations, blog posts questioning the authenticity and trust of these bloggers, and arguments in every which way that often paint a horrible picture of all “Mommy Bloggers.”

What they never see is what happened today. My friend Anissa Mayhew had a stroke last night. Watching from work, I fought back tears every time a read a blog post about all the people in the blogosphere that Anissa touched in some way. I never had the pleasure to work WITH her, but I’ve had the pleasure of hearing her laugh, say something off color and hilarious, and just bring joy to the people around her. As I read these funny stories and heard all the tweets coming through the stream, I couldn’t help but be amazed at what was happening. It’s a beautiful thing – to realize that through social media, we’re not alone.

Ultimately, it’s the community. The community is amazing. We saw it with Maddie. I saw people support me after BlogHer. We’re seeing it now with Anissa. In small and large ways, so many of us have been touched by the power of Social Media and community. It’s an amazingly beautiful thing and I can’t help but be humbled by its power.

Anissa – you have the entire internet pulling for you. We love you and we’re here for you.

My Final Love Note to Boulder

I’m sitting in Terminal C, Gate 48 of the Denver International Airport. There’s a hint of emotion as I type this – my swan song of a blog post as a Colorado resident. I woke up this morning to find my mercurial friend Meghann sleeping on one couch and the omnipresent QuasiJames on the other. As I woke them up to get ready for the morning of goodbyes, I felt that the imagery of those two being the first and last people I saw in Boulder somewhat fitting.

A lot has happened in the last two and a half years in Colorado. I’ve grown and matured. I’ve found a career I truly love (and I’m pretty good at it too). I made some amazing friends. A lot of these things may have happened in any other city in the country – I was in a ripening stage of maturity and locale was not the sole factor to success – yet, that can’t take away from the fact that it did happen here in Boulder, Colorado.

Boulder is an exceptional town full of exceptional people. From the fitness buffs to the tech scene, I have never felt people that continuously stimulated me to improve like I did in this front range city. The friendships that I’ve procured through the years are ones that will stick with me – even when the inevitable gravity of time pulls those relationships apart. The mentors I acquired, the peers that inspired – so much credit in my life is owed to Boulder that I can’t even begin to encapsulate the time here with words. I even will refrain from naming names because I don’t want to leave anyone out – because there was so many people whose friendships never blossomed completely yet still effected my development. So take this as a universal thank you to everyone who I engaged with in this mountain town. I’m taking a piece of you to New York. My success is, ultimately, your success. I will always remember that.

When I first arrived in Boulder, I emailed my mailing list and expressed myself as “speechless” – so it’s only fitting that I feel the same emotional tug as I leave this town. In that email, I talked about how before I ventured out west the palette of colors I used to describe my world was a Crayola 8 pack – and the green grasses of Kentucky, rolling hills of Kansas, and the imposing figure of the Rockies turned that 8 pack into a 64 and then 120 pack of crayons. I take that palette of colors back to New York with me – hoping that my experiences here will color new shades in the often gray shadows of those concrete canyons. I return east transformed by the west – at peace with many personal demons, at ease with the timbre of my life. I have never been more excited for the career opportunities before me and have very little fear to what lies ahead. I know, in the end, that it will work out – powered by my talent and the people out there that read this blog, that call me with words of encouragement, that wish kind thoughts my way. I will color my world and live outside the lines with the reckless abandon of an imaginative child – thinking about only that which is possible; not the things that are not.

This is all because of Boulder. This is all because of you. Thank all of you for reading my blog. I hope you stay along for the ride.

What’s Next for Me: Empire State of Mind

Last week, I announced on Twitter that I was leaving Crocs to pursue other opportunities.  Today, I’m proud to announce what my actual plans are.  I am leaving Boulder and the great state of Colorado to return back East to work for R/GA in New York City.  This was a move that happened quickly, but when the opportunity came to join a firm with the reputation and status of R/GA – I couldn’t pass it up.

My time at Crocs was an eventful one.  The last two and a half years of my life were perhaps the happiest I have ever had.  I enjoyed the sun and fresh air of Colorado.  I met some amazing friends.  And I was able to create something I am very proud of for a company that I will always hold dear to my heart.  I finally was able to work in Social Media and use my passion for this form of communication to build a true community around a very well known brand.  It was something that I received great kudos for – whether through official channels or pats on the back at conferences – and for that, I am forever indebted.  The opportunity I have at R/GA would probably not be here if it wasn’t for Crocs.

Photo by @greeblemonkey

Crocs, however, is bigger than I am and I leave behind a social media program that will be in very capable hands.  It’s bittersweet to have to walk away from something I built – knowing that I will no longer have a say in how things are handled – but I feel that the passionate consumer base that I helped organize will be there for whomever takes the reigns.  I’m excited to watch things from the sidelines, to simply be a member of the Crocs community, and to watch the brand, my colleagues and my friends grow.

The personal and professional pressures that I felt really made this decision an easy one.  I simply felt the tug of the city – watching the Yankees win the World Series, listening to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys belt out ballads to the boroughs – I couldn’t help but want to return back to the only place that felt right for me.  Professionally, I loved my time at Crocs but wanted new challenges – I wanted to apply my skill sets in new ways and R/GA provides a greater stage for me to shine.  Agency life will be vastly different.  It will test me in so many different ways.  Yet, in this crucible, I feel I will become a better professional.  I’m excited and I’m glad all of you will be around for the ride.

In the end, like with all social media, I couldn’t have done it without the crowd.  With out all of you out there who read my tweets, my blog posts, who followed my every move on the social web – thank you so much.  It was all of you that made the 12 hour days easy.  It was all the smiles we made together that made this job fun.  You were there for me through everything.  It was your enthusiasm to listen to me that made me who I am.  There is an African proverb that says that the path to greatness is paved by giving thanks to the great that came before you.  You, all those readers and people that follow me, are the greatness that has come before me.  Whether you’re a friend I made in Boulder, contacts I made through the industry, or random pixels of an avatar of someone I never met – I am truly thankful.  Leave a comment below so I know who is out there and who made this past two and a half years the greatest of my short lifetime.