live in seattle

I’ve been here about two weeks, and I don’t have a job yet, and I barely know anybody.

I’d say that it more or less just feels like a long vacation so far, and in a lot of ways it does, but at this point, it’s been too long and uneventful for that any more.

The very few people that I do know so far, though, my boyfriend in particular, have made it fun, and I’m enjoying myself.

Seattle – There’s nothing magical in the air here that will surely rescue anybody from their woes.

It really is as gloomy and damp as the reports of it say. But it’s got some definate charm, too. It is kind of a hipsterville, which is really not such a great thing for me. I like culture and creativity, but I don’t really like hipsters. Anyway, blah blah blah. I’m glad I did it.

Sure, it remains to be seen how well things will go, but I have a good feeling about this.

Mission accomplished.

I’ve been here for about two weeks, and it’s been pretty great. I miss my friends A LOT, but I’ve had fun, too. Lots left to do. Still don’t have a job.

But mostly, I just am really having a good time living with my boyfriend.

My dad helped me move, and he and my boy had a long, interesting, slightly uncomfortable, but very valuable talk. I really appreciate both of them a lot after all of that. It was kind of a big moment in my life.

Anyway, he’s sitting on an exersize ball right now playing the new Zelda for wii, and he looks totally cute. Everybody should have such a cute boyfriend.

I got a few calls back on my monster.com resume, one of them is almost exactly the kind of job I’m looking for, but it’s in Bellevue, and I’ll be living (without a car) on Capitol Hill. We’ll see, we’ll see…

Anyway, I’ve been temping at my current job for about five and a half months. I was going to tell them today that I’d be leaving in two weeks from this friday, but instead, my boss called me into her office yesterday and offered me the full-time job. Cool, because they liked me and will be a good reference, and also it brought the issue out without my having to bring it up. Man, that was really some strange coincidental timing.

My Dad is driving up from Mesa, Arizona to help me move. This is going to be a little weird. My dad tries to be understanding and supportive, but I know he just doesn’t understand my living with another guy. I know he’ll be polite to Alan and everything, but it will still be…strange, maybe awkward. Plus, my dad is such a major goofball, always telling corny jokes and everything, it’s a little embarassing. I mean yeah, I’m 30, I know, but still, my dad is kind of a goof. I love him and everything, and I think it’s a huge step from ten years ago when I came out that he’s helping me move in with my boyfriend, but it’s still all very new and strange. Mostly for him, but I’m still very aware of it.

I can tell you one thing, I can’t wait to get out of this sickening heat.

I am having a garage sale this Saturday, and I have friends helping me move my stuff over to one of my friends’ houses who’s offered to host it, and then a week later on the Sunday before labor day, another friend of mine is hosting a party. One of my favorite local bands, whom I played trombone for on one of their albums, will be playing, as well a few other bands I’ve been in. It should be really fun, even if sad.

My apartment is a huge mess right now, and I don’t know where to begin. When I get rid of a lot of stuff for the garage sale, it’ll be a lot easier to handle.

At this point, I feel like I have a few things I have to do still, but other than that, I’m more or less just waiting to get it over with.

Well, there’s no stopping it now. I have nearly all the money that I need saved, and I have a place to stay. Of course, I have no job lined up, but I should have enough money saved up to allow me to live comfortably for a whole month.

I’m pretty excited. It’ll be a nice fresh start in a new place that I’m already starting to like a lot. I was just there last weekend, actually, and had a nice time.

I am of course also daunted by having everything be so new, and having to get everything together. But I’m ready for it. Six and a half more weeks!

Fait seems to be making this once horribly difficult-to-reach goal a lil too easy for me.

I’m halfway to my savings goal, and ahead of the savings schedule I had set for myself. On top of that, money that I hadn’t planned on making is waiting for me at the end of this month.

On top of all of that, my friend/romantic interest up in Seattle has two room mates in the house he’s rent sharing. One of them’s moving out in late August, right before I plan on moving. Yes, moving in with a romantic interest is potential for trouble, but strangely, I’m not too worried. I’m more worried about having only a few thousand saved, no job, and having to go hunting for an apartment on my own, which will be too expensive, crappy, and require first & last month’s plus deposit in a city where the cheaper one bedrooms start about $100 higher than they do here.

I already know the dude, of course, and I know his roomie well enough to know that things should run smoothly. I’ll have relatively cheap rent in a nice house that’s centrally located on Capitol Hill, washer, dryer, dishwasher…uh…yeah, no way I’m not going to live there at least long enough to find a job and then start apartment hunting, if that even becomes necessary.

So yeah, at this point, I just have to wait till September. Sure, I still have to keep working both jobs, but i’m not as worried of falling short of the savings goal as I was, and the housing aspect is in the bag. I can relax a little bit.

Look out, Seattle.

One of my main reasons for wanting to move is that dude. We broke up back in January after long-distance dating for about ten months. At first the idea was to visit each other, see how it goes, and then likely one of us would move.

He got a job working for Amazon that he loves, and that pays really well. About three times as much as he used to make. I started thinking about what to do with myself, as I’d worked my way up a ladder of working admin jobs, which keeps you alive, but doesn’t really fulfill you (and look, I know that hardly anybody is totally in love with their job, but I was wasting my potential) and then I just up and got fired at the end of last summer.

I was already pretty much warm to the idea of moving to Seattle, but now I had been set back pretty heavily. Truth be told, I probably could have saved enough money at the time to have just moved up there after I got fired, if I had committed myself.

But I was a lot more up in the air about things, mostly personal issues about life directions, than I wanted to admit to. I was distracted. It’s why I lost my job, and it’s why the relationship started going wonky.

And the relationship started to deteriorate more. We were both going through big life changes and dating from hundreds of miles apart. Sure, he had just gotten a much better, higher-paying job, but it was a while before the money kicked in. He had to live on what he could scrape together from his old, shitty-paying job for about five weeks before his first check and hire bonus came through, and then a lot of that had to go towards bills.

I was now working two really crappy, low-paying jobs to get by, but now I had decided what direction I wanted to go career wise. I just had a lot of work to do to get there.

Anyway, we stayed friendly and fond of each other, but just…really strained. We basically both gave up and marched along because we still genuinely liked each other, but the relationship sucked. I tried to keep some blood flowing through it, just to make sure he knew I still liked him. It was just interpreted as despirate, and it probably kind of was.

Worst of all, at one point I even borrowed $150 from him. Talk about humiliating, having to borrow money from your boyfriend. When a few months passed and I was on the other end of Christmas, he refused my repayment. I wasn’t sure how to take that for a long time. It seemed more like a payoff and aknowledgement on his part to the fact that I was a failure than an act of friendly charity, but it wasn’t, he genuinely thought I deserved it.

In Janurary, we finally talked about the obvious lack of realistic devotion in the relationship, and that was the end of it. Things were weird for a long time and we were decent to each other, we obviously were still friends, but it was weird and occasionally avoidant.

At that point, I had enrolled in school and started studying graphic design. Something I should have done a long time ago. I really put myself into it and managed to always show up for class and get the homework done dispite my insane schedule of working two jobs and having practices for several bands. I occasionally got to get some sleep, too.

Then a few months later, he started being really, really attentive. I didn’t know how to take it. I feared a back-and-forth, on-and-off relationship. Breaking it off, and a few near-break-offs before it became official had put me through the mill emotionally as it was. This return to attention and affection was recieved with skepticism on my part, initially.

But finally one night, I had a long conversation with him in which he seemed pennetant, but realistic, and not unwilling to let me know how he had felt at times. It was refreshing, even if kind of humbling. We have not “gotten back together”, but we now talk more, and more openly and honestly than ever before.

I think we both realized the seriousness of being involved with each other entailed, and he was now sure that I wasn’t a total fuck-up on life. I have been really reluctant to appear too hard-set on moving up there because I don’t want him to think that I think that moving will mean that we’ll shortly have a lovely white pickett fence home together and live happily ever after, and I don’t want him to be afraid that I’m going to move up there and just mooch off of him.

Moving will be kind of a trick. I’m still not quite experienced enough in my chosen field to be able to move up there with a job secured, or even necissarily be able to find one super easily. I may have to keep working office/admin jobs or something like that for a while.

But I’m pretty serious about it. I will need to enjoy the town and build an independant social network for myself. I have a really great one here that I’ve developed in the last seven years. I’ll miss it.

But I think the opportunities, in the long run, for me are better up there than they are here. I sort of don’t feel like I’ll ever have as strong of a social network as what I have here. But there’s a bit of a sense of stagnation in staying here. Even if I continued school and secured myself a good job in the field I want, which I think I could do here.

I kind of like the “big fish in a small pond” feel here. I look at the Seattle “scene” and it just kind of annoys me. But I’ve also met plenty of people up there who just enjoy doing their own thing and making fun cooperatives in the way similar to what I see here in Sacramento.

I was talking with a friend of mine once about living here and pointed out that there’s a big risk you take in leaving, and she pointed out that there’s also a big risk to take in staying.

I’m gay. This isn’t a really big town, and in seven years, I’ve only dated one guy here for a while that I really considered to be all that interesting. I don’t want riches, fame or status. There is happiness and comfort here that I’ve never had before I moved out of my parent’s place. My friends are very decent, honest, caring and strong people. But I also know a lot of screwballs. The people I work with at my night job are mostly a bunch of slackers, kids. They’re all younger than me and they are all sort of social drifters. I love them a lot, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not super uplifting.

I know a lot of great people here who are superb friends and very stable and encouraging, don’t get me wrong. But I think a fresh change of scenery might help me take when I’ve learned from all my really substancial friends and not have to be constantly in the sphere of influence of more stagnant people. I’m sure a lot of the “stagnant” types are good people, and they will probably obtain a measure of sucess in their lives. But right now, I feel like a lot of them are drifting in a soup that I feel like I’m done with. Being around them so much is kind of a drag, and although knowing that I’m doing things to move me forward in my life helps me coexist with them happily without being dragged down by them, sometimes it’s still kind of difficult.

It’s a social issue that is unavoidable, but it is better if in your own life you know you’re doing things yourself that are constructive and positive. Taking that step, moving to a new town to continue my studies and career, I’d feel like that if for whatever reason I ended up in a similar situation (namely working a “make-ends-meet” job for a while with some fun but disaffected people, or even not so fun) I’d feel that much more personal strength in light of the situation.

But the guy. There’s no guarantee that moving up there is going to mean we’ll even go out, it’s been laid out flat and established. But I know I will have at least one really good friend there, somebody who will not turn their back on me, abandon me.

But the thing is, we’re obviously totally into each other right now. The distance is still awkward at times, but there’s far less awkwardness. Our relationship no longer hinges on my moving up there or not, and vice versa. Somehow, that has made it easier for both of us to accept it as something that can really happen, and something we’re both more excited about.

Yeah, I really, really like this guy. He is handsome, he is funny, he is talented, and he is a sweetheart. I told my brother once that his (the ex’s) encouragement in my studies and even my hobbies, and even at times giving me a good swift kick in the ass at times (metaphorically), with positive effect, illustrated to me that I had somebody in my life, even if they lived far away, who knew me better than I think anybody else in the entire world, and was honestly very interested in my well-being.

That means a lot. I have a good family, don’t get me wrong. But though my parents try to accept my being gay, they don’t understand it. They’ve come a long way in eight years, but I still can’t talk to them about relationships like most people can talk to their parents. My mom has really surprised me at times, though. But they still will never really understand.

Having somebody in my life who cares about me like a family member, who speaks his mind even if it’s not what I want to hear, but doesn’t throw things in my face, it’s rare. When it’s pretty evident that that person likes you back and appreciates you for the same reason, it’s even more rare.

I know it’s dangerous to move away from so much for the sake of affection for one person. I’ve known him for eight years, and for about six of those years, I wasn’t even that fond of him, I thought he was flippant and cocky. I’ve still got some issues with his occassional brashness, but a lot of it I’ve come to find endearing, because I know where he’s coming from now, and i know he is a sincere person who doesn’t mean anyone any harm, and that he is in fact a very sweet, caring person. I know what to expect from him.

How could I even try to pretend that he’s not part of my reason for moving. Whenever I’ve thought about moving before, San Francisco and Seattle were my two more ideal picks, the others were based more on their financial practicality than the actual allure to the town. I had even thought about the fact that he had moved up there (he used to live in the bay area, where I first met him, until 2001) and even though until about two years ago, I had a much different opinion of him than I do now, I did sort of think that maybe if we lived in the same town as each other, we might get to know each other better and maybe be better friends.

I have another ex who lives up there too whos is a nice guy. He’s sort of having a rough time, but he’s a survivor, so I’m not too worried about him. We’re good but distant friends, and it’d be nice to be able to see him now and again. His parents live in the same town as mine, too.

But the guy, THE guy, I’ve met a lot of his friends, and they’re great. I think I’d feel welcome among them. I sometimes even forget that some of them aren’t from among the group of people that I know here in Sacramento.

Anyway, the goal is starting to solidify more. I sometimes still feel like I have to convince myself that it’s a good idea, but I’m more ready for it now. School will be out as of next week, and even though I haven’t turned in either of my finals, I know I did well in both classes. I feel like I’m finally moving towards something in life. The road ahead is still hazy, but at least now I know which road I’m on.

Seattle is just a city, I know. My goal is really about more than just a place, but Seattle just happens to represent an apex for me, one that I’m moving towards. Hopefully I’ll see you guys in September, Seattle people.

I live in Sacramento, and I like it here. I don’t like everything about here, but I do like it here. I have great friends here. Real quality people, the kind who feel almost like family.

The thing is, I’m 30. I have been working clerical and admin jobs that just kinda get me by for the past seven years. I’m in school studying graphic design right now, but it’s between working two low-paying jobs. I’m also involved with a few really great bands. One of them I’d really miss, and some of the finest friends I’ve ever had are in this band.

But I want to go back to school full time when I get some money saved up and some other things out of the way. Sure, I could do it here. But I sort of feel like I need a more drastic change of scene to help motivate me.

However, I also don’t want to feel stranded and friendless in a big, new city. I know Seattle isn’t as hugely foreboding as like New York or Los Angeles, but it’s a lot bigger than Sacramento, nevertheless.

I’ve become acclimated to Sacramento, too. Don’t be fooled, it does get cold here, but whereas snow for Seattle is a semi-rare, but occasional phenomenon, it only happens here once in a blue moon. I would not miss the sweltering summers we have here, though, and I do know that though it rains often in Seattle, that it is more of a steady, drizzly stream, something you can get used to if you’re the right kind of person. I know that it still gets dumped on sometimes, though.

I also don’t have a car. Sacramento is really flat. I’d have to work for a year to establish residency in Washington. I know lots of people in Seattle live fine without a car, but well, moving up there with no car, not knowing the city and trying to find a job…eugh.

But mainly, what it’s going to come down to is if I can find good people. Thankfully, I already know some up there. Two of my ex-boyfriends live up there, and one of them I get along with well enough, he’s just kind of reclusive. The other I get along really well with. I’ve been up to visit twice in the last year and have met some really great people. They even remind me of some of my friends back here.

But it’s just a small handful. A start, sure, but still not much, although knowing five really great people is better than knowing twenty people who are just kinda…okay.

Right now, I’m the most distant sattelite of my immediate family. I used to see them at least a few times a year, but this year I didn’t even see them on Christmas. Moving to Seattle would put me further from them, and of course, possibly make it less likely for me to see them all that often.

And lastly, well, a guy who I’ve known for almost eight years, one of the forementioned exes, he lives up there. This past year, we have spent a lot of time together, and I really like the guy. He might not still be single by the time I’d be ready to get there (I’m trying for a move in September, if I do end up moving), and even if he is, it’s not like I feel like it’d be inevitable for us to start going out again. But I can’t say that the prospect doesn’t motivate me. But even that aside, he’s one of my very best friends, and he’d be a good person to know in any city, single or not, and he’s already established there.

Staying in Sacramento would not be the worst thing that could happen to me. But I sort of feel like that even though I know my really good friends appreciate me and do even like having me around, I feel like, since I have a lot of life choices to make and hard work to do, I can’t be there for them as much as they deserve, based on the kind of friends they’ve been to me.

One thing is that I’m involved with a few bands, and some of my best friends are in these groups, and I really, really enjoy being in them, and they work really well. But the thing is, bands like these don’t last forever anyway. If I stayed for a band, even a good band, I’d have something really great in my life, it’s true, but I’d still have a lot of problems to deal with, and I’d feel like I wasn’t getting anywhere with the rest of my life.

I’m not that shy, and though sometimes I come across as a really slick social butterfly, other times I just feel awkward around new people.

I also am wary of wasting time with people who seem okay at first, but who turn out to be duds. That’s just a concern with moving in general, not just Seattle, of course. I had a lot of that to deal with when I first moved here. It took a while to sorta separate the wheat from the chaffs, so to speak.

Anyway, those are my main concerns. Obviously, Seattle is a very pretty city, I think my personal views go well with the general political opinions of the city. I’m gay, and even though midtown Sacramento isn’t that unfriendly to gays (comparatively to the US at large), Seattle seems like it might be a little more tolerant. Seattle kinda has a big hipster “scene”, which is sort of an obnoxious thing, in my opinion, but at least there’s a decent setting for independant arts and music. I am just a bit wary of it being stuck with a lot of pretentious people if I want to do anything with independant art and music. I guess we have some of that here in Sacramento, but even though this isn’t a cultural mecca, there is some great independant art and music here that is about 95-100% free of pretentious doo doo and scenesterism. It’s something I’d miss a lot.

Lastly, though I do really like asian food, damn it, we have good burritos here.

Well, there you go. That’s me and moving to Seattle.