OHISASHIBURI

As they say in Japanese, it's been a while. No need to expound on the reasons why. To bring things up to speed, I'm out of work, been so for longer than I've hoped to be and I'm actively looking to change that. I also turned 40, so I've turned a corner in my life and I'm thinking about how to reinvent and repackage myself. It's been alternately interesting, depressing, and scary. Recently, David Horvath (the creator of Uglydolls) has been posting a lot of great stuff on his Google + stream. By great stuff I mean really wonderful advice from a guy who has made it big doing it his way. He doesn't sugarcoat it. He straight up says that you're going to encounter failures, but he also comes across like the life coach I've been looking for. It's been really inspirational. It's hard to find your mojo. Harder still to maintain it until it bears fruit. Hardest of all, finding it again when you feel that you've lost it. David's online pep talks have been amazing, and have lit a fire under my ass.

Today I got messaged on Facebook from a colleague from my old job. Despite the fact that we've never met in person (he's in Los Angeles, I'm in New York. Really wish it had happened, just never came to pass), I've always felt that we had a good rapport, which is actually not so crazy to think in the age of the internet. Anyway, he was just reaching out to me. The company we both worked for has been having a hard time of it the last couple of months, and both of our positions got eliminated. It was nice to hear from someone in such a genuine, unspoiled fashion. In stark contrast, I haven't heard word one from my old boss/head of the company. Not even a "thanks for everything, wish you well". It was really disappointing. Disheartening even. But then out of the clear blue, "hey, how're you doing?". People surprise me and disappoint me in equal measure.

Today I also had a talk with my neighbor about the outdoor space we share. To be fair, we had been encroaching on his space in recent weeks, and he just made the perfectly valid point about not wanting to have to look at somebody else's stuff. We'll ignore the fact that he doesn't separate his trash, drag the building trash to the curb, or shovel the walk when it snows for now. But the encounter itself was uncomfortable for me. It reminded me that one of my real weaknesses is that I hate conflict with people. I'm fine with angry conflict, probably a little too comfortable. When we lived on Sullivan Street, we had these asshole neighbors who just co-opted a courtyard space in the building that happened to look directly into our apartment. I eventually confronted them about it. It was extremely hard for me to do, and talking to my neighbor today I had that same shitty feeling in my gut. Was I turning into the asshole neighbor? This fucker never once cleared the steps when it snowed 8 inches a week once a week for the entire month of January. But he pays rent, and that space is his, even if I feel it would be better used by me. I was in the wrong, and he was right for calling me out on it.

I think one of the reasons I stopped blogging for so long was that I was always looking for some kind of way to wrap up disparate things I wanted to write about in some kind of neat fashion. It has been cool to find something I needed without even really looking for it, thanks to David for that. Anonymous colleague, I hope we do get to meet in person some day. Downstairs neighbor, I appreciate you coming to me to address your issues. I hope you know that despite the fact that I hope you move out and somebody much cooler moves in, I never want to be the bad neighbor. I know how shitty they can make things. And to myself, need to work on resolving conflicts in a way that doesn't leave me obsessing about them, because that does me no good whatsoever.