Happy New Year

A year and a day ago I arrived in New York with an overstuffed van of belongings and no place to put any of it. It's been a hell of a year.

My first couple months here were spent in a hopeless repetition of long days filled with applying for jobs I didn't want and working a random smattering of gigs, usually for little to no pay. I remember the misery of submitting cover letter after cover letter and the anxiety of having no prospects whatsoever on the horizon. Despite it all, I can only recall those months with fondness now. Amidst the interminable hours spent leaching off the wireless and air conditioning from the coffee shop across the street were mild Fall days where, after a morning of combing through the job boards, the bulk of afternoons were devoted to deciding what we wanted to cook for dinner. We were still exploring the mundanities of the city around us -- discovering jogging routes, determining the best grocery store to shop from, figuring out subway and bus routes. The days, unoccupied by any job obligations, stretched long and -- oddly enough -- full of promise. The city could hold anything and it was there for you to find, just around the next corner.

Brooklyn was still a faraway place, set aside like a book we were curious about but didn't have time to crack open yet. Words like "Houston" and "Canal" were suddenly unfamiliar on our tongues, the bridges reaching across the rivers were indiscernible from one another, and every street looked the same. We had signed a year-long lease but had no idea if we could sustain ourselves here for that long. Everything seemed nebulous and uncertain, except for the conviction that this was a place I needed to find a way to stay in, otherwise I would regret it for the rest of my life.

And now it's a year later. Work has been comfortably steady for the past 8 or 9 months, while still allowing me enough time to pursue side projects or take trips to new cities. My idea of New York has gradually expanded far beyond the confines of Lower Manhattan to include places like Long Island and New Jersey. There's a strong familiarity with the structure and layout of the city now, allowing you time to notice quainter things like the ubiquity of scaffolding or how my boogers are a lot gnarlier here than they were in Los Angeles. Idiosyncrasies abound, and you learn to do things anew. Eat, drink, walk, drive, freeze, sweat, go to the library, shop at the grocery store -- you learn to do all of it over again. And in the process you really, truly fall in love with a city.

This has been a year of change, to put it laughably mildly. A year ago I was listening to "Empire State of Mind" pounding out of car windows while wondering how the hell I was going to pay my rent; today I'm heading over to Jay-Z's midtown offices to work on background visuals for his concert with Eminem (oh yeah, brief update on the company -- it would seem Possible Productions is on the cusp of some big things). A year ago I didn't know where to get anything I needed; today I have books lining my shelves and a refrigerator full of food. A year ago the apartment was freshly painted and scrubbed down; today the walls have yellowed just the slightest and a layer of dust has settled comfortably over the floor beneath my bed and all of the other spaces we've come to not use.

A year ago New York was a challenge; today it's home.

Anyway, here's a grab bag of moments from this past year.