On Why I moved to NYC and plans for after settling

I wasn't going to post until I had some good news about either job hunting or apartment hunting but I'm wide awake and I just spent about an hour trying to get the damned wireless connection to work on my lap top. I'm actually on my cousin's computer right now, though I should probably try mine out again since what ultimately fixed the problem was resetting the modem and the router (pretty typical). I love computers. I do. I wish everything in life could be fixed by unplugging it and plugging it back in sometimes. Though I do love a challenge. And there's my kick ass segue into the topic of this blog and reason number one in a series of blogs I'm going to call, "Why I moved to New York."

I do indeed love a challenge. I don't think life would be worth living if we didn't challenge ourselves to do things that are out of our comfort zones. Something big, at least once in your life. Never mind that it's exciting too, to go beyond your comfort zone. It's incredibly enriching to challenge yourself and to find out that you can do exactly what someone or other told you that you couldn't do. I moved up here for a couple hundred reasons but the one that sort of tied them all together was the inherent challenge in leaving all familiarity and certainty behind and throwing myself into something that to most seems like a veritable crap-shoot. Living in New York City. It's expensive, there's a lot of people here, there's a lot of people here trying to make it, it's loud, the living accommodations are small, it's cold in the winter. Most people who've said anything about the weather, have told me, jokingly, that I've picked a crazy time to move up here. Meaning, of course, in the dead of winter (ironically, it's actually in the 40s and 50s most of this week). That makes me want to say, "Why would I bother trying to avoid that when it's a fact of life up here?" Never mind the fact that cold weather has never bothered me as much. I'm not going to stand out in the streets in my underwear after all. I grew up knowing how to dress for the weather and, in fact, it's something that I pride myself on. It's something you can't run from up here and if I want to get used to living up here, I might as well take on the worst of it first thing when I arrive in the city.

That having been said, no, it has not been cold here. I'd say it's averaged about 10 degrees cooler than Raleigh. Not too shabby.

Back to what I was talking about, a challenge. If I stayed in NC, where you don't have bitter cold, you don't have a huge crowded city with tiny living accommodations, I'd get bored. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy living there and I won't miss people. I did and I will. But, if I stayed there I'd wonder my entire life what could have been if I had just challenged myself. So that's why I came. A huge "Why not?" was staring me in the face.

On another slightly related topic, it's a strange thing, but, I don't yet feel like I live here (mainly because I don't technically), but I also don't feel like I'm on a visit. I've felt at home on public transit ever since my third or so trip here back in March of last year (this probably comes from a little bit of practice with the Paris metro, too). I have my friends here. I've been talking this up (as most of you know) in my head and to other people as long as I've been dreaming it up. For all intents and purposes, I've been here in my mind since I finished grad school 9 months ago.

I'm assuming once I'm working and I have my own place, then it'll feel real. But right now, I just feel in limbo. It's mildly frustrating but I'm one to take that all in stride these days. I look at it all as a part of the journey and an essential part. If everything were perfect right away, then this really wouldn't feel real. Because, I've spent all this time thinking about it and preparing myself for it, it all just feels like it was supposed to happen exactly like this and I've had no disappointments about it yet. In fact, back on that taking it all in stride thing, I've even been preparing myself for when things don't work out as planned. It's made for a marvelous transition. See my first blog about how I finally came to make the decision about when to move. It was all centered around things not going as planned and me realizing that too much planning could be detrimental to a degree.

At any rate, regardless of how things go or are going, I've caught myself thinking about what steps to take once I am settled, because, transcendent as I can be about the uncertainties that will no doubt characterize these next few weeks, I do see the importance of some plans being laid and those plans working out as planned. So, I've got a couple of things in mind. One, an album of electronic music that I will produce and put up on CD baby and promote through myspace. The idea behind the album will be musique concrete but using rock guitar sounds as source material instead of just any real world sound. But it will be more melodic. I've had a few ideas running through my head. This is why I will eventually need a studio with cool neighbors, because I will eventually need to record said source material. And it might be loud.

Another idea, is to take a few of the musical ideas for concert music that I have floating around and arrange them for a chamber ensemble that will include electric guitar (both distorted and clean guitar). Then I'll submit them to composition festivals and competitions.

All of this requires my own space and 90% of the equipment for it all is still in Raleigh.

Soon, though. Soon. I really should get to bed. And if I end another blog like that, someone please punch me in the face. I do need to get off that overnight shift schedule.