I moved to Seattle to take a job in January. I was so thankful to be close again to my friends in Vancouver after 9 strange months in the Bay area. San Francisco is a beautiful place, but it I think it is similar to New York in the sense that is best enjoyed when you are making a lot of money. I never met anyone who was really on my wavelength, except for the ex-girlfriend of a DJ buddy who I knew in Vancouver. She is one of the best friends I've ever had, but she was always more interested in me romantically than I was ever able to rise to the occasion for. Not for lack of trying, but it just wasn't meant to happen.

By the time I left Vancouver for the first time, in March of 2004, I had finally gotten my last girlfriend in New York out of my system. I left New York in September, 2003. I was sitting at the beautiful Cathay Pacific gate -- JFK has finally started to join that new American phenomenon, the airport that isn't not a miserable hell. Competition from Newark had forced long-needed reservations. It's still one of the worst airports to fly in and out of, since it is so far from New York, public transit access sucks, and the terminals are spread out randomly, as though no thought or effort was put into planning the place. Generally, as soon as you set foot in one of JFK's many terminals upon arrival, you're instantly reminded why you left New York in the first place. The degenerative meanness produced by too many people living so badly permeates the mood, and you're quickly hungering for your return flight back to wherever it is you came from. At least until you arrive at some tranquil Brooklyn flat one of your survivor friends has managed to rent or buy. But as usual, I digress.

I was sitting in the Cathay terminal, my ex's last words to me before refusing to show up to my going away party being, "It should have been this way all along," as we lay in the grass in Battery Park City and watched the sun go down. "It could have been," I thought, "if you hadn't been such a bitch!" Looking back of course I realize I had some growing up to do myself. She calls me right before the plane is leaving. "I'm so sorry I didn't come to your going away party. I love you."
"Why do you always figure that out when it's too late?" I asked her. "I have to go, they're boarding the plane." It was truly one of the most cinematic moments in my life. I was nervous that Canadian customs would wonder why I had so many stamps for Canada in my passport, why I was bringing my snowboard in September, etc. I sweated bullets as the Customs officer asked me what I was doing in Canada. "I'm getting a serious amount of dental work done, as I don't have insurance." It worked.
I saw the ex the first few times back to New York. It seems like I always have to back there, every few months, for one family event or another. The last time, in January, we had a particularly good time. I still thought I could convince her to leave her big city life behind for the unbelievable peace and tranqulity of life out west. I asked her about an occasion when she ran into a friend of mine and seemed hostile, and she said, "Why didn't you stand up for me? I don't need friends like you!" And we haven't spoken since. Given how much we seemed to drive each other batshit, I guess it was for the best.
While I was in Vancouver, I realized I could do whatever I wanted, so I thought about trying to go to law school and saving the world. Maybe I could be like the husband in the OC, work as a public defender and marry rich. This led me to take a job at a non-profit in Berkeley, one of the stranger things I've ever done in my life. How I made it through the 9 months in San Francisco, I still don't really know. I spent most of my time working on music, talking to friends, cooking, and watching a huge number of 60's samurai movies. I'm fond of telling people that most of my moral beliefs come from these movies, and I'm not lying when I say it. The lone wandering heroic samurai is a man of incredible honor and integrity who has no thoughts or fears of the future, he is simply a lost soul in search of a purpose, much like myself. Except I'm not much of a fighter.
When it got close to the wire, I started appliying for jobs at retail music equipment stores and other such things. That's when amazon called and saved me. As soon as I got here, I planned on going riding every weekend, but the winter was the worst winter on record, so I went up to Vancouver almost every weekend. And something had changed. Me and the Chief Scientist had unlocked some kind of secret, and that's how the ghetto pimpness got started.