(See what I am saying?)

How to be optimistic:

The horseshoe shaped burgandy vinyl bar booths in the back of Billy O's in Ventura California enhance gravity.

My back was to the karaoke stage, and as gravity grabbed ahold of me, my view of the world, or at least the world inside Billy O's began to rise, as my glass began to empty.

"Let's welcome Lee Ann to the stage."

My head was already below the back of the booth, and there was no going back.

"Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today"

The irony was nearly beyond belief.

The sound of a middle aged woman floated over the sound of boys flirting with girls and girls laughing back at them.

"I want to be a part of it - new york, new york"

Girls with jet black hair and bright white tank tops walked past the burgany bar booth. From bar table level they looked like bad reinactments of good memories.

"These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray"

The boys with me around the horseshoe shaped burgandy vinyl bar booth were pitching in money for Josh to go buy one of the girls with jet black hair and a bright white tank top a beer. I pulled out $5 and tossed it in the pile on the veneer table top.

"Right through the very heart of it - new york, new york"

By the time we had mustered up enough courge in Josh i was close to lying comletely flat on my back on the burgandy vinyl bar booth in the back of Billy O's. We cheered him on as i contined my descent.

I stared straight ahead and smiled. It was last call. The world; or at least the world at the horseshoe shaped burgandy vinyl bar booth in the back of Billy O's in Ventura California, was moving by above me in in 4/4 swing time.

From that vantage point, i thought, the glass always looks half full.

[footnote: I never saw the $5, the beer, or the girl again.]

Where I stood today

I drove down to the beach by the ventura harbor because i wanted to talk but didn't know what to say. because i wanted to leave but didn't know where to go. because i was angry and i didn't understand why.

the tide was rising. the sun was setting. I couldn't get anything off of my mind, even the things i could change. The sets were breaking and rumbling into the edge of the earth in a white rush of salt and milk, sounding like a million gin and tonics sizzling into the sand below my feet.

prada took off into the rumbling white line that blurred the difference between the land the and water. she loves the open space. i think she can feel freedom in spaces where she senses no edges. she was wearing the blinking white light on her collar she was given at christmas. it darted like a firefly flickering in the distance in and out of the surf. watching her move across the beach made me smile. and if it wasn't for her, i would have been standing there entirely alone at the edge of the earth.

it wouldn't go away.

i stopped walking. no one was around. the beach houses over the hill were dark and the only sound was the ocean breaking and rumbling into the edge of the earth in a white rush of salt and milk that sounding like a million gin and tonics sizzling into the sand below my feet.

and then i understood why.

it took me 1 year to be taught that the man who wins is not the last man standing, but the first to go.

i stood there facing the setting sun and the rising tide. i watched the momentum of the earth as it rolled away from the sun, sending the great white walls of water rumbling into the sand under my feet, which in turn, pulled the sand back away from the land out into the the sea toward the setting sun. it could have been the most beautiful moment in my life. standing there, watching the sun and the sea and moon and the tide and every element in the world turning like perfect clockwork in the gears that never stop spinning inside the giant machine called god.

and there i was, like i was the only living boy in new york. like i was the only living boy in california. like i was the only living boy in my life.

like i was the last man standing.

like i was the last man to figure it out.

like i had learned my lesson and should know better.

whether there is another life or not, i thought, i just didn't want to be in this one for too long. i didn't want to be standing alone like that. i didn't want see what i was seeing or feel what i was feeling and know that i will be the only one around to share it with.

the biggest curse isn't to be in pain, but to be aware of it.

the second biggest isn't to be alive, but to be the only one doing so.

i had finally learned something from all of this. i had learned what it meant to be lucky. to be blessed. to be the fortunate one. to have the most beautiful moments of your life happen while you are not alone. and then to leave gracefully before you were down by the ventura harbor watching the sun and the sea and moon and the tide and every element in the world spin like perfect clockwork while standing all alone.

What I really look like:

The Broadmoor is an 3 story apartment building in Los Angeles County.

It has sat quiet on the street since sometime soon after end of WWII. The Gill Sans letters on front float in front of its brick wall, back lit, and looking like a national guard armory, or a post office in a small town. From the street it looks like a perfect building to be in the a postcard of Los Angeles modern architecture you could hang on the refrigerator in the kitchen of your cozy home.

Being inside of the Broadmoor makes you wish that you had a home with a kitchen and refrigerator.

I however, was standing in the back staircase of the building, propping open the back alley door, and peering up the staircase, imaging in my head if i could twist the 8" couch just so and hang it out the door, that maybe, just maybe it would fit over the railing and up the stairway to Leanne's second story apartment.

"Who are you." The man said as he walked in the back alley door. It wasn't so much a question as a demand.

"My name is Todd." i replied.

"Get out of here." he said.

"Excuse me." i replied.

"Get off this property right now." he said as walked straight towards me corralling me down the stairway.

"Is there a problem."

"Yeah. You. You are trespassing. Get out of here. I am calling the police." he said as he dialed his cell phone.

As he began to walk away, I asked, "Who do you think i am?"

"You're Ty. Get out of here!"

"Who is Ty?" I said. "My name is Todd."

"Your name is Todd?" he said as he closed his phone.

"I thought you said 'Ty'. There is some shabby looking guy creeping around here trying to sue this place. We have a restraining order for him. I thought you were him."

"I'm not." I said definitively, and walked away.

I stopped halfway up the stairs. He though i was shabby? he thought i was creeping?

I am not shabby. i don't creep. do i?

When designing material for clients, i always try to adapt to their visual culture. "know your audience, they always say." and speak their language. (whether it be written or visual.) There is a aesthetic shift in age groups, whether it be in typography, product design, fashion, and personal appearance.

"It is just a generational thing," Leanne told me. She was probably right, i thought.

He probably does not perceive the Broadmoor apartment building to be anything unique. it is what he knows. After all i later found out he is the head honcho around there. A baby boomer in a baby boomer building.

So later, to clear matters up, while sitting down at restaurant downtown, celebrating the ascent of her 8" long couch through 4" wide staircases - i asked the waitress, who was very similar in age to myself, what occupation in life she thought i was. I wanted to know her perception of me without blatantly asking her if she thought i was shabby and creeping around her restaurant.

She looked puzzled.

"I know it is a strange question." i assured her. "But honestly there is no wrong answer, you won't offend me."

"Well." she said.

"You look like you are probably a truck driver."

Flickr

I have filled up 30Gb of space with photos this past year. Most of which span this continent in geography and and were taken in situations that span even farther.

And they sit collecting digital dust. So instead of displaying them on back up DVDs in metal cases in the bottom of a wooden filing cabinet, a friend suggested I put them on Flickr.

There are philosophcial, scientific, and artistic debates over what constitutes a photograph. Is it the act of making one? The digital representaion of it on screen? Or is it the tangible evidence of one in your hand?

The same questions apply, i suppose, for what constitutes a friend.