2012

The world didn't physically end, but there can't be new beginnings with out some ends, and there were oodles of new beginnings over the last 364.5 days.

I started a creative writing class primarily because it fit my schedule and it turned out to be the best, most connective class I've taken in college, ever. Seriously, I made at least five friends, and probably one good one, in that course, never mind the guided writing practice, never mind the networking and mentoring.

I saw Mindless self Indulgence and got many, many free drinks thanks to my good friend Mike.

I started a multidimensional, multiyear tattoo project with the inimitable Jimmie Hayes, of Liquid Chaos Tattoos, in Brownstown, Michigan.

I went "boating" for the first time, and the second time, and it was surprisingly fun. It was surprisingly fun with only two people, and I think the more people that join in, the more fun it will be. Next time I'll make it more of an event. (Also, GPS.)

I became an American citizen this year, took the test, passed it, stood and pledged my allegiance in un-ironed, somewhat flattering, trousers and a light grey argyle sweater I can't for the life of me find.

I started role playing again, with a good group of guys, and we all get along pretty swimmingly for the afternoons that we play. I think we'd get along outside that setting, but I won't push the issue.

I've started writing again, if somewhat sporadically.

I started doing performance art this year. I would consider my final project a finished piece, even if I haven't gotten any feedback on it, yet. And I consider Pecha Kucha evenings performance.

I met the director of puppetry and performance art for the DIA and was told I should submit something for their performance art show in February, 2013.

I got a disgusting stomach bug and an awesome octopus mustache and a tea  cup with an octopus inside it.

Ran into my first catch 22 of marriage. Have been, if I'm honest, reeling from this one for the 11/12 of the year, but! 2012, none the less.

Now, I understand why passionate coffee drinkers are passionate about coffee, but I don't know how anyone could settle for anything less, once they'd committed to (what I'll refer to as) The True Coffee Experience (Thank-you, Roos Roast).

I made some new friends through old friends, and I saw my first live cage fighting experience. The two are unrelated, and not unrelated, but not related as the first two strands of thought went.

I started reading plays as art, and now appreciate playwriting and play performance as more separate things.

I am aware a lot of these could be grouped together, that I could sort them out better, that this is just rambling, but I'm okay with it.

This isn't an instruction manual, this is a rumination.

First (majority of) a year as a father, and Everyone's still alive.

I got my nipple tattooed. Yes, getting my nipple tattooed hurt.

Maintained a surprise friendship, a very nice one. It's 2013 now, I think we should go out for drinks now and then, then and now.

That's a scratch on a beautiful scar that is The Year, 2012.

I've spent today trying to convince my wife that its okay for babies to cry until they calm themselves when sleeping in a new room, and watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, which is about a famous chef helping restaurants that are failing to succeed. He's an incredibly high strung, but very calculating man; he understands the concepts of Agency, Passion, and Beauty through Simplicity. Most importantly, he usually succeeds in teaching or reintroducing at least one of those concepts to the people on his show that he helps.

That's a boring tagline.
Here:
Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is the A Team television show you'll wish you had as a youth: All the swearing and helping the downtrodden you'd ever want to sink your teeth into.

Snow Bird

I love being warm, and I love knowing that a car will do what I want it to, on a given road.

Driving on, in, through, snow is no such a thing.

So, what does this look like? If a year from now I'm writing from a meshed in porch in Indonesia, or Thailand? How did I get there?

I know that I am not there 100% of the time, I am still married, still have a son. We have to leave after Christmas, and stay until his school is out, so may or June, if they follow roughly the same educational time table we do here.

Does he learn Thai or Indonesian, in addition to English? I would like that.

I chose this location because it is warm, I know it to be (with research and a guide of sorts) cheap, and it seems reasonable.

Also because it requires a passport. The Puerto Rican islands do not require a passport, but are (I'm guessing) much more expensive, being primarily resort islands.

What am I doing? I am writing, one form or another. I could still be at the Uni(.) but that isn't strictly necessary, as long as we are all being supported.

Sure, but, all the way back to paragraph three: how did I get there? Was I visiting to set up a technology exchange for work? Were we vacationing? Visiting friends? A visiting professor whose acquaintance I made, who we (MW? Me?) became friends with due to children of similar ages and interests closely aligned?

There are weirder things that have happened.

I could be dual appointed, or working for a satellite or sister Uni.


As the sun sets, and E plays with his laptop or his Mega Blocks, I listen to noise canceling headphones while working on a new art installation.

MW haggles politely in the market for fresh fruit and veg and my mom (our families) send us hard to find foods and items via Fedex, once we've run out, around my birthday.

My birthday parties are laughingly described, now, as the most exclusive by all my friends back in Michigan.

Again, we are Indonesian, Thai, Korean, from December 27th through the end of May or June, and I work from my laptop or computer, or with my hands at some local job or what have you. Do I just find jobs once I'm there?

The idea of living without the social security net of a steady job is frightening, but is it ultimately better or worse than the alternatives?

I suppose we either find apartments --this would be ideal, for me (travel light, move light) we find apartments each time we move, or we rent out our house in the States and rent out or pay for the apartment/condo elsewhere even when we aren't in it (lend it to friends, or play host to families that need the space.)