working for myself: week two

Back at the library after a weekend break from work and a Friday that I wish I could re-do. Oh well, new beginnings! There is an urgency to being this week since I am going out of town Thursday. This means I need to get more work done over the next few days even though I am planning on bringing my computer on the busride to Boston.

I got sort of a boost yesterday as it appears that I have some money starting to trickle in. That began with a weekend of cat-sitting for a Wooden Shoe friend that was out of town, and then Wednesday I will be receiving my final paycheck from the Restaurant School. This money, although not much, will at least help me pay rent next week without having to dip into my savings account...yet.

It was nice to get a positive comment on something I wrote here from a couple weeks ago. I realized that my writing was probably more interesting then; when I was mentally struggling with larger life decisions instead of rambling on about all the work I need to catch up on or the mundane details of my personal income.

I'll try to keep it more interesting. And to write more too.

day 3/4

Yesterday I worked from home. The morning was productive, but as you may have noticed--I did not write. I think I would have got a lot more work done if I had left my apartment in the afternoon to work elsewhere. It was raining and I needed a break from the library, so I felt okay about it; it's just that things really degenerated around 1:00.

I updated Inga Muscio's page on the Aid & Abet website and then posted our August newsletter. It felt good to get so much done in the morning since the first couple days I had difficulties focusing until later in the day.

My life right now is basically a constant struggle to focus, to motivate and get shit done.

Ok, back to work...

day two

Maybe I just need some fresh air. My brain feels cloudy and unfocused. It's my second day at the central library and need to resdiscover the urgency and motivation of working independently. I have a sprawling to-do list, yet my mind wanders like a popcorn kernel sizzling in a hot pan. I'm going to take a short break from the library, venturing out into the summer heat for free food samples at the nearby natural grocery chain. When I return, things will be better. I will get work done.

working for myself: day one

After more than 11 months of being there, I quit my job last week; Friday was my last day. Today I begin my experiment with self-employment. The plan is to wake up each morning, Monday through Friday, and bike to Philadelphia's central library: my new office. It will be a challenge of self-motivation and determination. I've decided that the only way I will be able to succeed is by documenting the experience here. So everyday I will write how things are going, to keep me in check and to make this happen for real.

Today I have a lot of work to catch up on for Aid & Abet. I just started working with Inga Muscio, the author of Cunt and Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil. She has a new book coming out in November and I will be helping her manage speaking events around it. I need to finish writing up a description of her work to post on our website.

I'm also doing publicity for my friend Katy's band Trophy Wife. They have a new album and my job is to find folks to review it. There's a lot to be done!

In addition to all of that, I'm working on fall events for a bunch of other people include Heather Rogers, Tyrone Boucher, Kari Lydersen, and Cristy Road. I definitely have my work cut out for me. I'm excited to have the opportunity now to immerse myself in it without the distractions of my old job.

8.9.10: the beginning of the end

these past couple weeks (damn, the whole summer), i have been paralyzed by uncertainty. maybe it's less paralysis than hopelessness. either way, things started looking up today. the world seems a little clearer, more hopeful.

i was sick this past week with a strange combination of invincible sore throat and achey-fever, all in the dead of the summer. so strange. i called out sick from work thursday hoping to rest up to go back in friday for one last day before the weekend. but i felt even worse friday. that morning, i got up and drafted an email to the appropriate powers-that-be at my job. the email more or less said:

sorry i'm sick. also can't come in today. can you make sure to credit me with my remaining sick days? oh, and i have decided to try to work for myself so next friday will be my final day. thanks, matt

and now uncertainty has been replaced by a well-lit end of a tunnel. i'm not sick anymore and it was a little easier waking up and going to work today, knowing that this is it--the final week before i start taking my life into my own hands.

between self-empowerment and self-sabotage

my life is pretty strange right now. i wake up and go to work every morning. not the same job i've had since september, but it is the same employer. instead of serving hungry and tired people food and coffee, i sit around and fold things, tie things, and put things in bags over and over and over again. until there's nothing left to do and then i sit in a dank, damp basement until it's time to leave. my brain rots.

simultaneously, my to do list is through the roof. there's a lot of important work that needs to be done during the time i'm at this new job. but it just sits there untouched. fall tours, album releases, all on the horizon as i waste away my hours for barely above minimum wage.

this. cannot. last. much. longer.

actualizing dreams

another month is almost over and it struck me that i haven't written in a while. writing keeps me accountable to my dreams. it keeps me honest. a lot has happened. a lot is happening. a lot is going to happen, with summer afoot...

last month i turned 29 years old. i don't believe that life ends when you're 30--i'm actually excited about it and am trying to embrace the process of getting older. for me, the final year of my 20's is about checking in with all of the things i have talked about doing and trying to make some of them happen. i want take advantage of that urgency to get shit done. then i can have some serious momentum when i enter my 30's next year. i will be unstoppable!

this is a 3-day weekend that just began. on cape cod and other tourist destinations, this marks the beginning of the summer season and the influx of outsiders. all that it means for me this year is that i have one extra day off (paid) from the drudgery of my wage job. returning to work next week will begin the final month of dealing with customers and pastries. my job as i have experienced it for the past 9 months will end on july 2nd. i will celebrate by going up to maine for my family's annual reunion/vacation on the beach, only to return to do odd jobs around the college.

the summer should be better as i hope to work on projects both on and off the clock. but it's the fall that i am getting most excited about. in september i will quit my job and actualize my dreams.

the initial breaths of spring

i have this theory that after such an extreme, debilitating winter, when spring reaches philadelphia it will be twice as amazing as usual. people will feel free and inspired once again as the air warms and the days grow longer. anything--everything--will become possible.

this week has been a little preview of such exciting things to come. one of my new favorite bands, on tour from new orleans, played a house show in my neighborhood wednesday night. i hosted a lively event on art and social transformation thursday and i'm eagerly anticipating another great event at the shoe tomorrow evening. last night was the first of a monthly series of salons in fishtown coinciding with the city's first friday art festivities. lots of good people and good music.

and even though it's still unbelievable that it's happening so soon, i'm getting psyched about our trip out to portland next week! friends, aid & abet meeting, and good times are promised. along with green trees, green grass and mountains...things i haven't seen in many months.

returning to philadelphia the following week, spring will be gearing up for real. new possibilities are on the horizon...

current top ten: beyond invincible winter

the winter is finally starting to get to me. after surviving the most snowfall on record in philadelphia i began to feel it today. the cold air, the ice, the grey sky and dirty snow piled up everywhere, crawling under my skin.

so, i want to try to stay positive. here's my current top 10, or things that have distracted me from the nasty, nasty mid-atlantic winterdom:

-Hurray for the Riff Raff: seeing them live in new orleans last month. listening to their new cd "young blood blues" nonstop since i've been back.

-New Orleans: secretly wishing i was still there. weirdly inspiring me to pay attention to football and routing for their saints in the superbowl. hope you're enjoying mardi gras liz!

-Wooden Shoe Books: the radical nerve center of philly. i'm inspired by everyone i've met there and the events we've been able to put on in our beautiful new space.

-Andrew Jackson Jihad: fresh folk-punk anthems from arizona. one day, i hope to see them play on the subway...

-Dancin' in the Streets! Anarchists, Iwws, Surrealists, Situationists & Provos in the 1960s as recorded in the pages of The Rebel Worker & Heatwave

-Sharing a beautiful apartment with LaVange, an amazing and caring sweetheart.

-Running into my old friend Katy Otto at coffeeshop in my neighborhood and learning that she moved to Philly at the beginning of the year! Vote for her All-Ages Movement Project to get money for their vital projects.

-Revolt on Goose Island: The Chicago Factory Takeover, and What it Says About the Economic Crisis by Kari Lydersen

-Do Make Say Think: epic. instrumental. rock. their newest album "other truths" is the perfect winter soundtrack.

-Aid & Abet: we have a gorgeous new website designed by derek hogue (g7 welcoming committee/winnipeg). we have a couple of new awesome collective members and next month we're all meeting up in green, snow-less portland, oregon. that will help me get through the rest of the winter...

Remembering Howard Zinn

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction..."
-Howard Zinn

My Junior year in high school, we used A People's History of the United States to put Christopher Columbus on trial for genocide. That book blew my mind. Instead of reciting the version of history fed to us through the lens of the rich and powerful, through their experience as oppressor, Zinn's classic work opened up a whole new world: history from below. The book tells the inspiring, though often brutal, stories of everyday people struggling to create a better society. I would never be the same.

The following summer, I was working as a breakfast and lunch cook at The Flying Fish Cafe in Wellfleet, MA. On one particularly slow mid-week July afternoon my boss, local musician and educator Lisa Brown, came into the kitchen and said to me, "Matt, there's someone in the bakery I want you to meet." I followed her through the restaurant and into the adjacent bakery to see a tall, lanky grey-haired man. "Matt, this is Howard Zinn. Howard, this is Matt." Smiling with glee, I shook his hand and talked to him about my Junior paper which compared his friend and comrade Noam Chomsky with his (and my) historical hero(ine), anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman. He thought that was pretty cool and said that he would mention it to Noam!

Life changing moment. Check.

Lisa joined the teaching faculty that September at Nauset Regional High School and during the first week back to school invited Howard to speak one evening to the students in the School Within a School program. He was still on the Cape with his wife Roslyn who spent each summer in Wellfleet, where their son Jeff directed a local theater company.

It was such an honor seeing him speak about his life in my high school auditorium. He spoke about how his experiences as a bombardier in WWII opened his eyes to the inherent horror of war, his solidarity with black students during the civil rights struggle, and his belief in people's power to change the world.

I raised my hand and asked what young people who want to make a difference can learn from the past. He said that we need to find other people who want the same thing and work together, that we can't make as much of an impact alone. It has been organized movements, he explained, that have changed the course of history, not single figures like our history books pretend.

Over the years I had the great privilege to see Howard speak several times. I also rang up his groceries once, and shook his and Roslyn's hands in their driveway while walking around their neighborhood with my college friend Nick, who's parents lived down the street.

But most importantly, I continued to be inspired by his writing and tireless struggle against war and oppression, his contribution to social justice and a better society.

So, needless to say I was saddened by today's news that Howard Zinn died at the impressive age of 87.

Even though he is not with us anymore his work will live on forever...

"And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

Rest in peace, Howard.

letter to an ex-lover

dear northampton,
it's been one year since i left you. just wanted to say hello and see how you've been. although it's hard to admit, i'm a lot happier without you. i have changed and i know you have too. i was so young when we first met and back then, you made a lot of sense to me. but this is a whole new era now. i met someone new and they're really amazing. even though it's nice to see you every now and then, to catch up, we both need to move on and embrace the future. i hope you have a fun new year's. i hope your ball successfully rises and that you're not too cold. i will be with my new love. i will be smiling, excited about what lies ahead for 2010.

sincerely,
matt

i woke up this morning and then...(part 3)

i guess there's nothing inherently wrong with having one of those blogs where you talk about what you did all day, if what you're doing is interesting...

today i biked through a violent early morning rain storm to get to my job on time. in the dark. the sun will rise later every single day until next week's solstice. i was drenched by the time i made it to work. luckily i brought a dry set of clothes to wear...wait. this shit is getting boring now.

when i'm at work i think of all the things i want to do, all the projects i want to start. but lately, when i get home all i can think about is not being at work anymore. more on that to come...

today, however, i got home from work--socks still damp--and did interviews with 3 different folks who are interested in joining our aid & abet collective. we have 2 more tomorrow! phew.

i feel like things are brewing right now and the potential for 2010 is already starting to explode. i like it.

half a decade later

it's been 5 years since i started writing here. at that time i was living in madison, wisconsin and spent my first thanksgiving alone, away from family. now i am living in philadelphia with a really amazing woman that i love a lot. yesterday we cooked all afternoon with her good friends who are visiting from out of town and appreciated being here and not in transit. i thought about plymouth and the national day of mourning, where i used to go each year. it was nice to speak to my family on the phone and i look forward to seeing them all in one month when i will have almost 2 weeks off of work. today i'm trying to refocus on the work that my full-time job as been distracting me from. there's a list goals for the month of november hanging on our fridge. just a few more days to get it all done!

breaking guitar strings and writing words again

shit. i'm not sure how i went the entire month of october without writing a single word here. i could simplisticly attribute it to this full-time job lifestyle, but there has to be more. i have to take responsibility too. writing is important; it's vital to my mental health. i don't think i can attribute my written silence to an unreliable internet connection either--at least not completely.

there was something about today. it felt like the beginning of a new era, a forging of that balance between self-confidence and self-critique. there was a heightened awareness of where i'm going and what i'm doing. this week, month, year, and beyond.

and now here i am, writing again. hello. it's nice to be back...

the final days of summer

september accelerates. i've developed this new existence where i wake up with the sun each morning and ride my bike into the world of wage labour, alongside cars that still have their headlights on. there's such an unusual comfort in cultivating a daily routine. alarm clocks, endless commentary about the weather, in bed before 11:00 pm. repeat. repeat again...

i struggled to accomodate my bulging to-do-list with this new lifestyle. home by 3:00 each day, but there's a conflict between the lazy desire for relaxation, for post-work leisure with a burning passion to get shit done.

last night i closed all the windows in our beautiful new apartment for the first time. fall creeps in and with it, the urgency to create and live hard.

on a move

today is the first day of september and everything feels different. the air has shifted, a glimpse into cool autumn nights and new beginnings. today, lavange and i are moving in together. when she gets out of work this afternoon we're gonna pick up a moving truck which we'll have for 4 hours. by 7:00 pm tonight we'll be settled in our new apartment. i'm looking forward to the potential of this new space and starting a new chapter here in philly.

a paradise built in hell

the most mundane is always the most existential. what we do each day/what we are doing with our lives. a lyric from a song is scribbled in sharpie on the bathroom wall: "daily life is shit." we are forced to read that over and over again as we, well, shit. hmmm...where is this going?

where are we going? what are we doing?

it's always in the most desperate, seemingly hopeless moments that we reach our most brilliant and life-affirming revelations. disaster brings out the very best in human nature. crisis as a glimpse of utopia...i can't do this anymore. let's pursue what truly matters with reckless abandon, together.

(re)visiting northampton

by the time sunday afternoon arrived i was practically crawling out of my skin, beyond ready to leave. i had seen everyone that i wanted to see. done everything i wanted to do. but i had a couple more hours before meeting my ride. i went under cover at the cafe where nobody else would be. at least nobody that would recognize me, or vice versa. i sipped coffee and hid behind the gorgeous words of valencia, michelle tea's memoir about her early years in san francisco's 1990's dyke underground--generously lent to me by liz diamond, my fabulous weekend host.

so, once we were on 91 heading south toward philly with the windows down and classic rock blaring on the speakers i felt relieved. but also full and content after a mostly lovely weekend in the town i called home for 3 and 1/2 years. every moment between thursday evening and that late afternoon sunday departure was a reminder of either why i stayed as long as i did, or why i'm glad i left. each one a manifestation of this ongoing love/hate relationship. with its culture, streets, buildings, and residents; this complex personal history with a town that's population has consistently remained 30,000 over the past 100 years.

the good and the bad. the paralyzing beauty and alluring ugliness. so much promise and potential. so many limitations and disappointments. i took it all in with a sweaty hug that lasted 3 days. all of it. in those final moments i realized that i had overstayed my welcome and relieved the awkwardness with a bike ride past the medows and the county fairground. i will keep returning, but maybe next time for just 2 days...

grad school revisited/returning to new england

so i've been thinking about grad school a lot lately. it's an idea i have played around with off and on the past 5 years, but i think this time is a little different. being back in school is a lot more appealing right now that working a shitty, just-barely-above-minimum wage job. it's been one week since i got fired from last one of those i had and the timing couldn't have been better. i basically have 4 months to research programs, study for and take standardized tests and apply. it would probably living in philly for the next year (in the apartment that lv and i are about to move into) and then relocate this time next year, probably to nyc. but we'll see!

i've also been thinking about, in the mean time, finding a new shitty (or maybe not so shitty) job and also about visiting northampton...which i'm doing this weekend! looking forward to seeing the good people that still live there and to be back in new england again before the end of the summer. who wants to go swimming?

take me back to the summertime...

growing up, i never wanted summer to end. it was always a magical season of infinite possibility and wonder. back then i didn't have to worry about mundane concerns like securing a wage job, navigating bureaucracies to access basic human needs, or the weight of losing everything. but that part of us never dies. it's what keeps us going; persevering through all the shit that the world offers up now and then.

many years later, there's part of me wants to just wake up on the last day of summer. all of my worries figured out. nothing but promise and potential ahead of me. but there is beauty in struggle. it makes us who we are and gives us appreciation for the good times.

i'm still a little kid. enjoying the summer.