Update!

Well, it's been...a long time. I really have to wrestle myself down and strap my wrists to the keyboard to make myself write. The problem is, I have a lot of subject matter, but I moll it over in my head so thoroughly, that when the time comes to write it, I'm already worn out on the subject.

But enough of that. I am currently residing in Skaneateles, New York. Every day I wake up, get ready for work, and by the time I'm out the door (inevitably a few minutes late already), I see my car windshield, and realize that I'm going to be later. For some odd reason it's impossible for me to remember this simple fact.

Fortunately, I live less than a mile from my work, so when my car battery committed suicide about a month ago, I could walk to work in only moderate discomfort. In fact, I rather enjoyed the walk - I would listen to Gogol Bordello in the morning and evening travel, and imagine that I am in some bizarre tundra in Ukraine, rather than a hibernating village in upstate New York.

This quarter has been an alarming lesson in my own willpower. After my car began working, I wanted to continue walking because of the enjoyment I derived from it. However, the convenience of the car almost always wins. I bought an expensive keyboard and brought along painting materials because I'm tired of wasting time in the ways that I normally do, and thought it might be beneficial to hone some skills. I would spend hours banging away at the keyboard, and finished an entire painting in one night...before my internet and cable starting working.

When I arrived in Skaneateles, I had an apartment set up already. It is one of those corporate housing-type arrangements, which, upon first encounter, looks identical to a hotel room. I immediately shifted around some of the furniture, hid all the brochures, and consumed the complimentary foodstuffs. Three weeks later, I recieved a note on my door that made it very clear that the landlord was not pleased with the way I was treating the apartment. I found this pretty surprising, considering the state of the apartment was about one tenth of the deterioration factor that I allowed to plague some of my previous residences. Apparently, my stray reciepts and papers were interfering with their dusting though, so I resolved the problem.

Overall, living by myself for the first time has been quite what I expected. I absolutely love it, and absolutely hate it. I'm pretty sure my life has never been less exciting, which was something to be excited about in and of itself, initially. I have time for reading, writing, and artistic endeavors, and I can do precisely what I want at any given time. Had I things to do on what I like to call "the outside world," this setup would be ideal. Home has never been the kind of reprieve that I've always heard it should be, although living with only my roommate in Cincinnati is pretty damn close, because we tend to share a wavelength.

Before this, there was Seattle, which was fine, but I lived with two other guys in what was essentially in student housing with apparently paper-thin walls. The noise alone would have kept me awake but it didn't help that I slept on a box spring for half of the quarter.

California wasn't bad, but an unstable, pill-popping roommate made for a nerve-racking experience.

In Atlanta, I lived with a guy who called the cops without telling me because he thought I was smoking weed in my room (I wasn't). He also habitually turned the thermostat to like fifty degrees in the height of summer. After moving out of there, I shacked up with a guy who lost all sense of ...sense when alcohol touched his lips, and his "girlfriend" down the hall would come ring the doorbell at all hours of the night and start crying and wailing as soon as she entered the apartment. Naturally, I spent many undue wakeful hours on my oversized bean-bag.

In Rhode Island, I lived with an utter sociopath who could not understand the concept of being alone for a moment.

Every time in between I lived in Cincinnati with five other guys in a filthy, dilapitated and chronically loud apartment.

Of course, before that I was living with the parents, who are perhaps the worst roommates of all.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that I was able to live at all of these places. I revel in discomfort and a certain amount of chaos, if merely for the learning experience it inevitably brings. But as far as homes go, these don't exactly describe the quintessential elements. Which brings us back to my original point, which is, as an apartment, this place kicks ass. As a lifestyle, not so much. If you think I'm just being dramatic, consider this: There is not a single bar in town. No shitty little pool hall, no bowling alley, no seedy local haunt. The village consists essentially of one intersection, and there is no foot traffic to speak of at any given point. Oh well.

I spent a weekend (and change) in Canada, two weeks after my arrival here. Myself and two other co-workers spent four days working overnight to put up displays in a newly opened Wal-Mart. I can say unequivocally that this was the least rewarding work I have ever done, but considering the overtime I was paid for it, I'm ecstatic I was able to do it.

I was later employed to take down a similar display at a place called Mack Studios in Auburn, New York. While we were taking immense custom pieces of Plastic, Cintra, and Aluminum and throwing them into makeshift dumpsters, I asked a co-worker how long the display had been up in the Target store it was designed for. He replied, "Oh, this one has been up forever...probably about five months."

This statement confirmed the sick feeling I had in my stomach while I was installing the Wal-Mart displays. Not only was all of this stuff transient and virtually meaningless, but it would be carted off to a landfill in a matter of months. This was only one store, and this does not even consider the enormous amount of plastic garbage that these meaningless displays would help to sell. We were in the cosmetics aisle of all places, too. If anything can make a person with any semblance of a conscience question his or her profession, it's putting up wasteful and meaningless displays to sell wasteful and meaningless packages full of wasteful and meaningless product. The whole process has no real value. Of course, you could argue with me over the value of makeup, but regardless I think my point is clear.

It feels absolutely stupid that I should have to deliver a caveat to explain my position, but I am not, historically speaking, an eco-crusader. But this profession (industrial design), really makes you consider your impact on the earth. You don't even have to care about nature to be concerned about it - the sheer volume of garbage with no intrinsic value that we generate is mind-boggling. Just the other day I was working on a product that would be licensed with Disney characters. My fellow designers told me that there is typically about a three day turnover for projects like this one. I couldn't help but consider the irony that this "bang-it-out" job would produce MASS QUANTITIES of stuff that in likely a matter of months would be discarded and replaced with something new.

Unfortunately it is a fantasy to think that if I didn't participate that it wouldn't happen. The environmental crises we face parallel that of the political, in that our own individual efforts are overrun by the madding crowd. It is no wonder why the political machine is referred to as just that. It's like a locomotive, either hop on, or get the hell out of the way. Sure, I could protest the government in a way that makes sense to me, and end up in jail, or have physical harm visited upon me. Likewise, I could protest the manufacturing industry, and end up penniless.

Basically, I have narrowed my life goals into two options, dictated by not only my political and social ideology, but also by my own nature. My first option is to try to find a consultancy that shares my concerns and only designs products that have real value, as well as submitting to the force and violence of the government as much as I need to in order to survive, while attempting to slowly convince people of it's evils. My second option is to make some money and tour the world until I find a place that speaks to my heart and is devoid of all the soul-crushing consumerism that becomes more and more offensive every year.

Even as I write this, in the back of my head I can picture myself doing what is "reasonable," which is to find the least offensive job...eventually, and traveling the world as a tourist. I believe that if I don't get out of the states while I am young, preferably in a less-than-responsible manner, I will be stuck here, and fall into the rut known as life. It seems that so many people had wild aspirations as a youth, but abandon them as they become more of a "realist." Well, it seems the door is closing on the era where Americans have the means and the privilege to travel the world - though I've been wrong before - but I certainly don't want to be another bitter xenophobic man sitting in an armchair somewhere talking petty politics to his disinterested progeny.