I always seem to start ranting by talking about sleep. Perhaps it’s because sleep seems to steer when I’m sitting in front of the computer, looking to waste some time without waking up more than I already am. It’s 2am. That might be a bad thing, but I’ve already slept four hours tonight. I’ll get another four easily before I’ve got hopefully my last hand follow up appointment at Harborview (with hopefully the last pelvis follow up next Wednesday. Although I’ve been having chronic back pain and often wake up with a drunk feeling in the back of my neck. I fear I will never physically recover from this accident 100%).

I’ve been spending a bunch of time on Yelp recently. I’ve used it a bit in the past as a consumer, searching for something specific and over the last week or two I’ve been reviewing enough to even get Tori addicted. Of course, she’s on dodgeball now too, so maybe she’s going downhill and I should re-evaluate what I consider progress. We’ve been going out at least a night a week after work for food and drinks now that I’m riding the bus home from downtown. It makes meeting on Capitol Hill somewhat convenient and thus generally works.

Wasting time on yelp tonight lead me here in the way that the tubes seem to always take you where you don’t expect. For those of you who don’t like clicking links, I’ll quote the important part about moving from SEA to SFO:

This is a monumental change. I was born and raised in Seattle. However, recently, I’ve come to realize that while I am ready to move forward with the “adult” phase of my life… Seattle just won’t let me. It’s too hard for me to forge a new path on my own as an adult when everything around me is steeped in 25 years of learned behaviors and experience. I didn’t realize this, though, until I visited San Francisco for the first time last November. When I got there… It felt like home.

This reminded me a lot of moving to Seattle two years ago. In tow of my ex-girlfriend, across the course of a summer and a nationwide road trip we settled here. Seattle has been “growing up” for me more than anything else. I’m sure the years count too, but I went from a place where not only did most of my friends have trouble holding employment, they seemed uninterested in it altogether. Many of them lived with me, and the burden of that would be a rant in and of itself. While I still have friends out here who work to pay the bills and their concern ends there, we’re at a basically solid spot in our lives. Of course, I have many more friends out here who are gainfully employed. All this progress does not really focus around work, although for me I’m enjoying the new challenge at each step, or job, along the way and feel fortunate to have these opportunities, having left Maine as opportunity seemed to be amounting to doing the same old consulting for every small business in two counties.

People out here feel like they’ve lived, whereas many at home, despite their whatever their pasts may be felt spoiled and judgmental. Again with the caveats, we’ve got fucking hipsters here. Yeah. Okay, well, you’re going to find judging people everywhere, even if it is a bit of a cult in this city. Life’s always been, and likely always be, and adventure to me. The quoted paragraph got me thinking though about how much “starting over” at the right time can help.

It seems like I had friends back east who tried to move and couldn’t make it work. I have the benefit of having a good career, which helped especially with landing in the Puget Sound area. We often talked of our friends not so much starting new, as leaving old, running away rather than resolving the patterns in themselves that were causing the local problems, and thus likely to keep causing the same fluctuations in their lives elsewhere. It’s certainly interesting now to look back and search for the distinction between running away and starting over.

I remember coming back here from the East Coast last Christmas. I had been home for a week or so and spent much of it traveling around the state trying to see as many friends and family as possible. It was hectic. When I got back a roomie and I were walking to the liquor store on Capitol Hill to stock up for a party. I remember feeling how good it was to be back home in Seattle. Partly due to the lack of snow, and despite being cold there was a nice sun out. But more the city and it’s people made me feel like I belonged here.

Who knows where I’ll end up next. I’m certainly not settling here at this point, which I think I’d amount to buying property or what not. Some people don’t realize how committed I get to jobs. I miss the culture and people at Haydrian, and I’m expecting something similar from Widemile. But I like what I do, and if I get to keep doing it, it’d take more than a little extra money to get me to move elsewhere.

I’ve been dating, for really the first time ever. While it’s “online dating”, it only takes about two emails to realize meeting in a coffee shop or a bar is the much better way to get to  know someone, but I do prefer it initially to bothering strangers in such places with pickup lines or the likes. It’s worked out well too, I’ve been seeing Susan (who lacks a proper myspace URL due to NOT being a social networking whore like myself) for a few weeks now and I’m quite happy seeing where that relationship goes.

So Seattle. My how you’ve changed things, especially me. On one hand, I think many back home won’t see the difference when I visit as they don’t often prod beyond my sarcastic walls, but at least family has commented on the positive outcome. And I’m happy with how things have worked out. So despite 2007 being the year of terrible fucking anxiety inducing shit happening, it’s working out alright in the end I think. (Think Positive!)