For the past few months, my thoughts have been consumed by the concept of design, mostly the concept of lifestyle design. To me, lifestyle design is the idea of creating a life one wants with the intention of living it beautifully. A beautifully designed life, like most designs, is subjective. I may find something beautiful that someone else finds atrocious. That’s normal, and I don’t want to say that my way is the right way even if it may come off that way. There are certain aspects of design that I find beautiful above anything else, the foremost of which is simplicity.

I’ve mentioned before¹ that I used to be a minimalist. Regardless of the reason why I don’t consider myself one anymore, I still do subscribe to many of the characteristics that make minimalism so attractive to me. To me, minimalism means simplicity. It means living with less and yet still living a fulfilled and happy life. Unfortunately, I took that to mean getting rid of most everything I own except for the bare essentials and forcing myself to find happiness this way. I didn’t buy a car for over a year and a half because I felt like I didn’t need one. I told myself I had legs I could use to walk everywhere. During those sub-zero days last winter, I pushed through the freezing cold by telling myself that this discomfort will only make me stronger. My thoughts have fortunately evolved, and now I have a car that has made going to my current job possible. There’s no way I’d walk the 10 miles to work and the 10 miles back home in this weather. Now I’m content with buying things that add value to my life, and I’m no longer worried about the number of possessions I have, as long as what I do have provide some sort of beauty, happiness, and utility to my life.

As my thoughts on minimalism have evolved, so have my thoughts on design. Something I learned recently is that design is about intent. My maturing thoughts on lifestyle design have made me think a bit more about its purpose. What am I trying to achieve by designing my life? What kind of life am I trying to lead? What type of person am I intending to become? Here are a few quick answers to these questions:

I intend to design my life by building routines that help me live the life I want. The life I want, the life I’m trying to lead, is one where I satisfy my desires. I’m a very impulsive person, and whenever I get a thought that excites me, I have to follow it through. That’s how I messed up the network this past week at work² and how I’m on this 200+ day Insanity workout regiment. My desires are far ranging and eclectic, and even if I satisfy only half of them during my life, I would consider that a well-lived life. Who am I trying to become? I’m not sure. There’s this image of a man I know I could be, but I don’t know why or what makes him so intriguing. The idea of a Renaissance man always intrigued me, so being well-rounded, a jack of all trades of sorts, always appealed to me. What does that mean exactly? I’m not sure. But here are a few things that have made it onto my todo list over the past few years:

• Write a novel³
• Learn Latin⁴
• Travel the world⁵
• Be fit and healthy
• Learn to juggle
• Draw every day
• Write every day
• Learn to play an instrument
• Learn a martial art
• Control my mind/meditating
• Read thousands of books
• Etc.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but that’s a good representation of the major desires I’ve had over the years. I’m currently going through many of the desires on this list and there are others I may never get to (I’m looking at you, Latin).

All I know is that if I wasn’t purposeful about my intention to live a life I wanted, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. And that’s something I don’t even want to think about.

Frustration is one of those emotions I feel incessantly. Part of it stems from my desire to be perfect, and the other part stems from my finite resource of willpower. I don’t have the time or the determination to do everything I want to do every day. Of course, I have to choose my priorities carefully, but I notice I tend to lack focus during any of my prioritized tasks. My mind is on those things I wish I could get done while I’m trying to do something else.

Following up on yesterday’s post, I took one step forward and two steps back today. I was able to figure out a solution to the problem of the teacher who couldn’t access her math program, but in doing so, I lost about a week’s worth of data somewhere else. Luckily, there was a backup on the main server machine, but to make things right, I have to spend a few hours transferring documents back and forth between different backups tomorrow. In the end, I’m going to lose most of the data for that program generated today since there wasn’t a backup for that, but everything else should be fixed.

I feel stupid. One of the main things I always preach to myself and to others when it comes to a healthy and productive computer life is to backup. Backup backup backup. I didn’t backup data I knew was important. I was too focused on solving this tiny little problem that I didn’t foresee the ripple effects my actions would have across the network. Being a solitary systems administrator is a tough job, especially when I have zero professional training and experience. These are all growing pains, though, and I’m glad I’m learning my lessons now.

I figured out the solution toward the end of my shift, so I was unable to put it into action. When I came home, my mind was focused on my failure and stupidity, and it clouded my mind when I began my Strength and Cardio Abs workout programs. My frustration helped me perform as well as I’ve ever performed during the Strength workout. It feels amazing to notice my strength and stamina improving week over week, and even more amazing when I know I’m pushing myself harder every day and actually seeing and feeling the results. I transferred this excitement — and frustration — into the Cardio Abs workout.

One of the warm-up exercises during this workout is something Shaun T calls tuck jumps: our knees are shoulder-width apart, we bend down, and then jump up into the air, making sure we jump from the bottom. We bend our knees upward, meeting them with our elbows. The time we spend in between jumps is miniscule. Once we land we jump again. I wanted to push myself during this routine. I’ve been feeling frustrated that there doesn’t seem to be any progress made with my lower abs. My body likes to store fat around my waist, so while I can see progress everywhere else in my body, I can’t around my waist. The tuck jumps work the lower abs really effectively, so I brought that frustration to mind when I jumped up into the air. That excitement from the Strength workout was still present while I did these tucks jumps, so I worked my ass off jumping up and down for about 45 seconds. During one of the jumps, I landed on my left leg first and my calf locked up. I fell to the floor, screaming in pain. I could see my calf twitch rapidly, and my calf muscle was the hardest I’d ever felt it when I touched it. It looked like it was dislocated.

I writhed on the floor for about five minutes, making sure to pause the video because I had it in my mind to finish the workout. I massaged my calf, jumped up onto my other leg and tried walking it off. The pain quickly faded away, and when I touched my calf again, it wasn’t as hard as before. It still hurt — and it still hurts now — but I was determined to finish. I played the video again. The exercise after the tuck jumps was wide tuck jumps. While the standard tuck jumps work the lower abs, the wide tuck jumps work the obliques. I was afraid to do it, so my first few jumps were half-hearted attempts not to hurt myself. Once I realized my calf didn’t hurt that much, though, I immediately pushed myself to go harder. I still landed on my right leg first a few times, just to relieve some pressure from my left leg, but by the end, I was working out as intensely as the people in the video. Fortunately, I finished the workout and went on with my day.

The lesson I learned today is close to this: don’t quit. Quitting will get me nowhere, even though I probably should’ve taken my injury as a sign to slow down and stop for today. I felt like quitting during work today. Not the job but the problems I was having with the server. I couldn’t figure out a solution until I realized there was a backup I could revert to. Instead of losing over a week’s worth of data and even more problems to deal with, I’m only going to lose one day and fewer problems. That’s a win. Last night I went to sleep with a cough, and I was worried I caught my first cold in over four years, but I woke up this morning perfectly fine. I’m not so sure what my calf will feel like tomorrow. Luckily, tomorrow is rest day.

All I’m hoping for is that I’ll be healthy enough to tackle Saturday with all the energy and focus I want to bring into the start of the last week of this hybrid workout. I want to finish strong. That means not quitting. I don’t plan to.

I’ve been having computer troubles at work recently. Something’s wrong with one of our servers, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve tried everything I know how to do, including searching on Google, but nothing seems to be working. The server is a Hyper-V server, which means it’s virtualized. It’s not a real computer but a operating system running inside another operating system. The host machine runs two virtualized servers, and the other server isn’t causing me any problems. In fact, I did some maintenance on this server recently and everything seems to run just a bit better than before. Except, for the other server. The main thing it’s doing is causing our time clock software to run super slowly. That was the symptom that pointed me down this rabbit hole of stress. People obviously hate when computers run slowly, so I’ve been tasked to fix this since I’m the only tech guy at this school, but I can’t seem to track down the main issue.

There was a bit a time a few weeks ago up to about a week ago where things at work were going super smoothly. It seemed like I was fixing every little problem that came up, and I grew confident. Everyone seemed to like me, and all I’ve been hearing about me were good things. I thought I had a handle on this job. Apparently not. I remember during the first few weeks at work I devoted a lot of my time to learning everything I could about the job. Recently, though, that desire to learn has waned and now I feel like I’m paying the price. After work, I received an email from a teacher who told me she can’t use a certain math program that her elementary school students use. I looked up the program, and lo and behold, it uses components that are installed on this problem server, so I’m seeing more problems trickle down across the school caused by this server. I’m unsure about what to do.

Part of me today wished I could just reinstall everything and start over. It seemed like everything the previous tech guys did to these servers were patches and band-aids and not long-lasting and well-configured systems, and now I’m paying the price for it. I mean, originally these servers ran Windows Server 2000. They were then upgraded to Windows Server 2003. Eventually, they went from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012. Upgrades are worse than clean installs, and I’m seeing why. Windows Server 2012 improved upon technologies that Windows Server 2000 used, but many of these systems weren’t configured correctly to take advantage of them. Files are still pointing to these old ways when the newer ways can improve the speed and efficiency of the network, except the work required to upgrade and fix all the computers and devices tied to the old ways is mind boggling. I can’t do much work now because school is still going and people depend on these devices to work now. Very frustrating.

Anyways, wow, I spent like three paragraphs bitching about work. I guess I should mention, before I go, that my copy of Insanity: the Asylum Volume 2 arrived today. I have 11 more days of this hybrid workout before I devote the following 30 to this new program. I’m excited. Also, I bought new headphones to replace my old ones. They arrived today, and they’re so much better than the old ones. I’m really happy with that purchase. And now I go to sleep. Night.

Something I didn’t realize until today was that 48 days ago, I committed myself to 150 days of Insanity. I began by doing the 30 day Insanity: the Asylum Volume 1 workout program. I followed it up with another 30 day program, but this time it was an Insanity/Insanity: the Asylum Volume 1 hybrid workout, which I’m currently going through. Then I’m doing the second volume of the Asylum program, which is an additional 30 days. After that, I’ll be doing the new Insanity: Max 30 program which is purported to be 60 days. That was the original plan. Before I bought the second volume of the Asylum, I read that it’ll include a 60 day Volume 1/Volume 2 hybrid workout, and I’m really tempted to do that after completing Max 30. That’ll mean a total of 210 days. Who knows, maybe there’s a Max 30/Insanity/Insanity: the Asylum hybrid workout in the new Insanity somewhere. That’ll be INSANE¹.

I really feel stronger. It’s really tough to explain. Think about how you walk right now, the whole process of standing up and moving each leg forward, one step at a time. Imagine that whole process improving: your posture improving because the muscles in your lower back are stronger, as are your butt and thighs, and because your upper back and shoulders just feel stronger, it’s easier to pull your shoulders back when you walk. There’s a springiness to your step because all your muscles are working better together. I’ve noticed that my reflexes are faster, and that my mood is so much more positive. I’m always smiling and things that use to get to me — remember her? — don’t get to me anymore. That’s another sense of how I feel stronger: my emotions and moods feel under control. Not only that, my motivation to keep going is stronger than ever. It’s easier to wake up every morning at 5, even after only 7 hours or less of sleep, to start writing my novel. Problems at work feel like opportunities to learn something new rather than burdens that irritate and slow down my day. I’m excited every time I start a new Shaun T workout video because I know I’m going to “make my body feel good.”² And I’m 72 days into this personal blog project, and I see no reason to slow down.

Everything begins with the body. I really believe that now. Taking care of yourself first helps with every other facet of your life. With these other facets strengthened, it’s easier to start doing the things that you love, especially those things that take a lot work and commitment. For me, that’s writing. I noticed before how I didn’t write when I didn’t take care of myself. It usually took a really low moment to happen in my life before I felt compelled to pick up that sometime metaphorical pen and start writing. This usually proceeded after I started working out. There’s something about sweating profusely that makes me happy and motivates me to start working.

I’m excited. What was once a promise to do 120 days of Insanity has turned into at least 180 days. If I add the first 30 days I did back in October, that’ll be over 200 days of Insanity. That’s a promise I’m making here, and that’s one I know will reward me later if I do the work. I know I can. Hell, I know I will.

I think we all have imaginary relationships with the people we encounter throughout our lives. While we’re walking down the street, minding our own business, we see someone across the street, someone that catches our attention. They’re wearing something attractive or are themselves simply attractive, and we imagine who this person might be. How do they live their lives?, we wonder. This beautiful person must have beautiful friends, a beautiful family, a beautiful life. We’re curious as to what kind of effect they might have on our lives, our empty and sad and lonely life. They can be that spark that can ignite that fire within ourselves, that can show us the true possibility and joy of life.

We imagine ourselves walking up to this person and talking to them¹. We don’t really think about how we start talking to them, but just that we do. We start telling them about ourselves, and they, to our surprise, love everything about us. They find our hobbies and interests and jokes so engrossing and funny. We imagine going on a date with them, a date that is full of laughter and attraction and joy. Everything’s perfect. We take them home, and they love everything about it. The way it’s decorated, the way it reflects our personality, and the way it feels. We turn off the lights, start playing some music, and things begin to get serious. We spend the rest of the night making love, and the whole experience is magical. We wake up the next morning, and they’re still lying next to us, asleep and beautiful. We grab their hand and simply caress it, feeling every cell of their skin. This is true pleasure, we think.

But then our life comes back to us, and we realize we’ve been staring at some stranger across the street for who knows how long. They turn the corner or they meet up with friends or they, tragically, meet up with someone else, someone they immediately kiss and walk off with. We continue on with our lives and simply wonder what if? What if we stopped imagining and started doing? What if we took control of our lives and started living it the way we wanted to? What if we became that person that’s better than even our imaginations could imagine?

Nothing’s impossible. We can be whoever we want to be, and that idea is powerful. We don’t have to coast through life and go through the motions, living each day of our lives mindlessly until one day we’re lying on our death beds wondering where our lives went. We can go talk to that person we think we might be interesting, we can hop on that airplane and go to that place we’ve always yearned to go, and we can start that project we know will make us happy when we finish it. All we have to do is to start.

Imagining what we want our lives to be is only the first step. Taking the next step defines who we choose to be. So take it.

It was a very, very lazy day today. I spent most of it watching the entire Batman trilogy. I didn’t plan to do this today, but I did, and I’m oddly okay with it. I think that I need to spend my days like this sometimes so I don’t run the risk of burning out. And I bought the entire trilogy months ago on iTunes and have been meaning to watch it for a long time. For some reason, as I watched one movie after another, I felt silly watching this serious interpretation of a man who wears a bat mask beating people up. One of my favorite shows right now is the Flash on the CW because of how it embraces its out-of-this-world source material. I mean, a man can run super fast because of a lightning strike and some chemicals. It’s a silly premise, but I guess that’s not the point, right? I love watching this guy run super fast and exploring the possibilities his super power affords because Barry Allen is a great character who embraces his circumstances with humor¹. I love Batman, too, but that sense of fun was lost in Nolan’s interpretation of the character, I think. And it took me, what, 9 years since the first movie to realize that?

I love superheroes because of their desire to transcend themselves for a greater good. I, like most of the world, love Batman because he doesn’t have any super powers. He became great by wanting it so much he devoted his life to the entire process. One of my role models is Leonardo da Vinci because he loved working. His insatiable curiosity inspired me at such an early age, and I really wanted to be a lot like him. I started carrying a journal around everywhere since middle school because of him. Neither Batman nor Leonardo stopped working and that’s super inspiring. Am I trying to make myself feel guilty for not taking advantage of today? Not at all. Today is Day 70, and I’ve accomplished a lot. One slow day won’t ruin anything; hell, it might make me stronger by having my body rest after yesterday’s brutal workout. And I can’t remember the last time I watched three movies in one day. As long as I’m happy, right?

Again, it’s been 70 days since my “crisis.” 70 days since that moment where I felt so guilty for my actions I needed an outlet to release it all. I imagine meeting these people again and thinking about what I’d say, if they let me say anything at all. An apology doesn’t seem enough, but it’s the only thing I can offer them. Another part of me doesn’t believe I should apologize, and that’s a part of me I want to stand behind. I know who I am, and I know what I’ve done. I made a mistake, and if I could apologize, I will. But they chose to no longer be a part of my life, so I’ve moved on. This whole blog has shown my process and how I chose to live my life after one of my darkest moments. I am who I am, but I’m always improving, always working toward becoming someone better than what I am now.

I may feel alone in this journey right now, but I know I won’t be forever. Anyone who doesn’t care about this can go fuck themselves. I don’t need them. I’m happy with where I am right now and with the progress I’ve made and am making. I can’t wait until day 365. My Year One will be complete, and I can see what I did right, what I did wrong, and where I can improve. And I’ll have it all down on a blog the whole world can see. How great is that?

I’ve built up my life on solitary activities. Everything I like to do doesn’t require anyone but myself. My main love is writing. I sit alone every morning and every night, place my hands on my keyboard, and start typing away. I love it when people read my stuff, but the reader’s aren’t part of the actual act of writing. I do that on my own. Another thing I love to do is to read. Reading is a solitary activity that involves me and someone else’s words. I workout by myself. One of the reasons I love Insanity so much is that it feels like I’m sharing my struggles with other people. No one knows how hard I have to push myself to complete each workout. I’m not sharing that with anyone. Nobody sees the progress I’m making or feels the exuberance I feel after completing each workout. I’m the only tech guy at work, so I have no one there to talk to if I need to bounce ideas off of someone or need help in figuring out some problem. I cook meals just for myself; I live by myself; I have a big car that no one has ridden in but me; and I have a twin size bed that’s only big enough for me, so I sleep by myself. I’m not sharing my life with anyone, and I’m ready for that to change.

I lost my friend over two months ago. I’ve moved on enough where I don’t think about her every day, and where I no longer feel pain when I do. My mind’s been thinking about someone else, and that made me realize how ready I am to move on and start dating again. Part of the reason why I’ve been so focused on building up my home — buying furniture, decorating it, etc. — is because I’ve been imagining bringing someone over. I want to impress her when she sees my little studio apartment. It’s not the size that matters and all that. But since it’s not ready, I’ve been holding myself back a bit. That’s not the only reason or even the biggest reason why I haven’t asked any girl out yet, but it’s the main reason I’m telling myself. It’s a lie and I know it is.

I feel like I don’t know how to share my life with anyone anymore. I’ve been hurt so many times that I’m afraid of opening up with anyone. I know that’s ridiculous, but it’s what I’m feeling. Slow and steady always wins, and that’s how I’m approaching this. With the knowledge of how my previous relationship went, I’m afraid and hesitant to start a relationship with anyone from work even though I’m aware of some possibilities. This job pays me very well, and I don’t want to do anything that may jeopardize that. Other than that, I’m a very passive guy when it comes to asking girls out. Again, I’m so used to doing things on my own that the thought of sharing my life with someone else doesn’t hit me when it matters most.

Confidence is most definitely a contributing factor here. I’m a fucking catch, but again, I don’t feel that way when it matters. When I see a beautiful girl at the supermarket or at the theater or somewhere else entirely, my thoughts don’t immediately go toward talking to her and maybe asking her out. My thoughts react to her beauty and dwell on how beautiful she is, then they go back to whatever it was it was thinking about before. My gut reaction isn’t to go after her but instead to watch her walk away. I need to be more active here. Who knows how many “the ones” I’ve let slip by by my passivity.

How can I ensure I’m more active? I don’t know. Just do it, I guess, and see what happens. What’s the worst that can happen?

There are so many things I want to do, tasks that have been on my todo list for a long time, but I just haven’t found the time to do them. These things aren’t time-sensitive, but there are things I want to do because I think they’ll make me better in some way. There are tasks in there that involve my novel, others that can improve my social life, and more that touch on health, productivity, knowledge, curiosity, and more. My current routines fill up the seventeen hours I’m awake. That’s really one more hour than I should be awake for, but there’s a lot of things I need to do.

This blog is wearing out its welcome, and I think it has strayed far from its original intention. I’m actually afraid of feeling this way, and here’s why. Everything feels great right now. Everything’s running smoothly, and I’m doing everything I want to do. But if I get complacent, then I will break my routine at some point, and I’ll be okay with that for some time. Eventually, I’m going to regress: I’ll start drinking, stop exercising, and maybe start bothering people I shouldn’t be thinking about anymore. I just have to keep pushing forward, no matter how hard, time-intensive, or repetitive it may get. This blog keeps me focused.

I am exhausted right now. I’m fourteen days into the hybrid Insanity workout, and I feel great. I really feel strong and healthy and happier. And I look better than I’ve ever looked before. All this is awesome, but since it’s so routine, I forgot I have over 100 more days of this. I finally ordered the second volume of the Asylum, and that’s the workout I’m going to start on the first of December. I’m either going to be in the greatest shape of my life come New Years Day, or I’ll be down with some injury because I pushed myself too hard. It all feels so automatic that I barely even think about it anymore. I hope I don’t get hurt, though.

Speaking of automatic, I recently purchased the Automatic dongle for my car. It’s this little device that hooks up to my car that tells me everything I need to know about the state of my car. It hooks up to an iPhone app and deciphers all those check engine lights, it studies my gas usage and gives me tips on how I can be more efficient, and studies my driving patterns and teaches me how to drive a bit better. At least, that’s what the website says it’ll do. I should be getting this tomorrow, so I’ll see how useful this little gadget will be. I also bought this leather notebook holder for my pocket notebooks. I bought it because it looks classy, and I tend to be rough with my notebooks, so I hope this handmade leather holder will help protect it a bit. The company that makes them spends time hand-crafting each one, so even though I ordered this a few days ago, it won’t ship for a few more weeks. Hopefully the quality shows through.

And I can’t stop thinking about a girl I shouldn’t be thinking about. She’s so pretty, though. Ugh, it’s frustrating. I can’t, though. I can’t.

Right?

I killed a hawk yesterday, and I scraped its remains from the front grill of my car. I was driving to work, going sixty-five on the highway, and toward my right, I saw the bird soar from up high to down low. I didn’t really notice it until I heard the big thump once I hit it. I felt horrible during the drive to work. So much, in fact, that I couldn’t even walk up and see my front grill until after work. I wish I hadn’t. I imagined a big splatter of blood, maybe a few guts. It was worse: its corpse was stuck between the bars of my front grill, its head poking out, a look of shock on its face.¹ I felt disgusted. I drove home, in broad daylight, knowing I had this fucking hawk splayed out on the front of my car for the whole world to see. Once I drove home, I took out my ice scraper, wrapped a rag around it, and started poking the hawk off my car. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. The worst part was when its body was stuck, its head bent all the way back toward its tail, and all the poking couldn’t set it free. I had to go on the other side of the bar where it was stuck behind and try to scrape it free. Its body flopped to the floor like a rag doll. I left it there and threw my rag away. There’s still a few hawk feathers stuck on the blood on my front bumper.

If I slowed down for just one second, that hawk would’ve flown past my car and it’ll still be alive right now. But I didn’t register its low flight was in direct opposition to my car. My mind was rocking out to some Hives blaring on my speakers. It was cold, I was annoyed, and all I wanted to do was rock out. My mind wasn’t focused on the damn road. I feel bad, if you can’t tell. It was just a bird, and I do understand that, but I’m no hunter. I don’t like killing things if I don’t have to. I like hawks. Hell, I had to look up hawks on Google Images to double check that it was a hawk I hit. Once I saw the pictures, though, my heart sank. That’s exactly what I hit and scraped off my car. It was flying south. This hawk was cold and just wanted to go somewhere warmer. I ended it, though.

For retribution, the universe broke my $300 Bose headphones. I was listening to a podcast while I washed the dishes tonight, and I bent down to pick something off the floor, and I somehow pulled on the cord or something because the left ear went quiet. All I could hear was the right ear, and I looked at the cord and saw that the end of the cord where it meets the headphone jack was frayed. I tried to mash the copper wires together and then tape it up, but I couldn’t. These headphones are done for. Part of me feels like I deserve this. Like it’s some cruel joke from the universe, and I have to atone for my sins. All because I killed a fucking hawk.

Or it could just mean that I’m not focusing on the world in front of me, and that I need to be more mindful of it.

Winter is in full force up here in Montana, with the temperature ranging from the single digits to below zero. The mountains are blanketed with the white sheet of snow, the ponds and streams are frozen, and I have to leave my house much earlier than usual to warm up my car and scrape the ice from my windshield. I turned on my heater yesterday for the first time since at least last December. In short, it’s cold, it’s beautiful, and it’s awesome. I can’t wait until I force myself to buy the camera I want so I can start taking some pictures.

Montana inspires me more than California did. I’m not sure if it’s something about Montana that California didn’t have, or if it’s the fact that I moved up to Montana at a certain stage of my life where I was more receptive to this facet of the world. I have no idea how long I’ll be staying up here; I do have a desire to travel that I has only grown stronger the more I try to ignore it. In fact, if I didn’t get the job I have now, I was planning to pack up all my possessions and drive off somewhere new. That’s a big reason why I chose to buy a big car instead of a smaller car that would have saved me money on gas: I wanted the option to travel with all my stuff. I’ll be satisfying that desire soon, most likely around Christmas time, when I drive to California to visit my family, to shop for furniture, and to bring back eight boxes of books and a plastic bin full of DVDs and other stuff that I left behind in 2012 when I originally moved up here.

I like most of the people I’ve met up here. One of the first things I noticed after I moved up here was how small this whole place felt. I’m not talking naturally. This place is called Big Sky country for a reason. What I’m talking about are the people. Los Angeles is more populous than the entire state of Montana, which means everyone where I live knows each other in some way. I now work at a K-12 school where friends I’ve fought fire with went to every day to learn. I fought fire with someone whose parents teach where I work. I work with teachers who taught old co-workers and firefighting buddies. People recognize me at stores and are nice enough to say hi. The world up here feels small, and part of me dislikes that, but another part of me likes it. Whenever I’ve come back to Los Angeles, I’ve felt the isolation more starkly there than ever before, even though there’s literally millions more people around me.

I started my novel in 2011, and I didn’t set it anywhere specific. I wanted to create my own city, but I didn’t want to think about it while I was writing it because I wanted to finish the damn thing first. I finished the first draft early last year, and I just barely started rewriting it this year. A few weeks after I started this blog, actually. I created my new city, and I set it in Montana. Once I did, the metaphorical floodgates opened up and the story feels new and fresh and much, much better than before. I’m pouring everything into this project, and I don’t think I would be here right now if I didn’t move up to Montana all those years ago. I moved up here over thirty months ago, and I’m finally ready to call this place my home.