Last night, after spending the last two weeks cooped up in our house, Jen and I drove into Baltimore to have dinner and screen a movie. She gets mailings from the Maryland Film Festival about events happening each month, and a particular movie caught her eye: it’s called Nine Lives, and it was produced for a tiny amount of money (relatively speaking) with an all-star cast. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First we drove into the city and through my old stomping grounds of Bolton Hill to try a new restaurant.

The old ‘hood has changed since I lived there. Back in the day, it had a certain feeling of genteel shabbiness, sprinked with eighteen-year-olds sporting purple hair and thriftstore coats. This evening I got the distinct sense I was walking through Georgetown—in the years since I left the area, the uber-rich have moved in and cleaned the joint up. I get the sense they kicked a lot of my patchouli-stinkin’ peeps out and rehabbed the apartments back into respectable Republican drone-hives. (This would be a shame, because in my opinion, one of the best things about being a student at MICA was the ability to score a huge two-floor apartment in a brownstone with a backyard and offstreet parking for $200/person. It’s hard to make art in a cinderblock cube.)

Around the corner from one of my old apartments was a small corner cafe that went through several identities while I lived there—overpriced independent coffee shop, overpriced independent lunch bistro—but is now called B, and which features a fantastic menu at reasonable dinner menu prices—you’ll drop a little less than $20 on a delicious plate of homemade pasta, and spend a little more for seafood. It’s got a cozy vibe, a good wine menu, and a delicious steamed mussel appetizer (ask for plenty of bread.) Unfortunately, we were too pressed on time to really savor the main course, so we ate our dinner quickly, grabbed our bottle of wine, and split for the show.

The new Brown center at MICA is bigger inside than I’d thought it would be. The architects seem to have done a magic act fitting a huge auditorium into the center of that structure, and I’m more impressed with the building now that I’ve been inside. Now I understand why the Alumni Association calls me every month for a donation; the heating bills in that place must be astronomical.

The movie itself was very good. The basic structure is nine ten-minute stories about different women, and each story is loosely linked in some way. Also, each story is shot in one long continuous take on steadicam. Apparently the film is not getting picked up for wide distribution—as some of the asshat reviewers on IMDB complain, there’s no traditional start or finish to each story, so it’s hard to package the movie to the mass market. If you see it recommended on Netflix, put it in your queue (the cast, crew, and actors all share ownership of the movie, so any money you spend on it will go into their pockets.)

After the question and answer session, we bundled back up and walked through the sleepy neighborhood to our car, enjoying the crisp air and our evening together, feeling like a couple in love.

Y’know, There’s something pretty cool about being able to wake up, make coffee, and walk aross the hall to the guest room to have a two-hour concept meeting with your wife. Especially when you like working with your wife.

I posted an update to the houseblog about kitchen progress this morning—I’ll follow it up with some pictures later in the day. I’m going to do some freelance logo work, and then run out to rent a floor sander to take advantage of the 75°weather.

How’s everybody doing out there?

I filed for unemployemnt insurance this morning, something I probably should have done last week. At least the food bills will get paid while I hustle up some more freelance work. Theoretically, I should be getting a final paycheck in the mail this week, but I haven’t seen one yet….

Friday was the last day of the first week of my new career, which I’m calling Do Anything To Keep The Gas Bill Paid. It didn’t go off as bad as the last time this happened. That time I ran around freaking out over how to make a tiny mortgage payment, sure that I’d never work in the industry again. This time has been better, mainly because I was already doing freelance work on the side, and also because the market is a lot stronger.

I was, however, without my cellphone for a week. We stopped down into the old neighborhood to drop off some shower gifts to some old friends on Sunday. When I got out of the car, my cellphone did a kamikaze leap off my lap onto a pile of wet leaves and stayed there for several hours until I got home and called about it. They rescued it for me, wiped off the water, dried it out (the battery was dead) and kept it for me until today.

Canton has changed even more in the past two years than in the six that I lived there. Pretty much anything that could have been called “local flavor” has been bulldozed to the ground to make way for 3-floor garage townhomes starting in the $400’s. At the foot of Lakewood avenue a year ago, I spotted a beautiful painted sign on the side of a renovation project house. It was the size of the whole building, and it had been exposed when they pulled formstone siding from the brick. I stopped to take pictures in the darkness, and found it hard to get a decent shot in the sodium-arc lamplight.

This afternoon, after picking up my phone, I looked for the sign and found it had been covered by glistening gray paint and fake vinyl shutters. Several windows had been cut into the middle, and a rooftop deck had been added with a spiral staircase. Anything original about the house had been wiped out in an attempt to make it as homogenous as the next one. Why would anybody cover that piece of history willingly? Why not seal it with silicone spray (repoint the brick, if you have to) and tell everybody you’re in the Sealtest House? It would be a huge selling point to your house, in my opinion.

I stopped recognizing that neighborhood as my own when the Outback steakhouse went in (right before I sold), and the new swoopy metal building in the Safeway parking lot (soon to house a Starbuck’s) sealed my contempt for what it’s become. With my cellphone safely in hand, I got out of there and headed back home.

Our electrician B. stopped by in the evening and began roughing in the wiring. It’s halfway done (he was here until 9PM) but already it’s looking like progress is being made. Sears called about our appliance delivery this morning, and our kitchen planner told me the cabinets came in yesterday. Everything is hurtling along, and I have to say, the excitement and activity helps me keep from suffering panic attacks whenever I consider our impending mortgage payment. My wife has been a rock through all this, continually telling me we’re going to be OK and not to worry. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I should be getting a final paycheck in the mail this week, and then I start drawing unemployment until I my accounts recievable checks start coming in.

So i guess I’m not freaking out too badly right now. Should I be?

I’d have to say the last four days have been as busy as we’ve ever been, and I guess that’s a very good thing. Instead of sitting around drinking beer and listening to blues records in my underwear, I’ve been keeping busy with updates to my portfolio site, getting in touch with contacts in the outside world, juggling the housing demolition with finishing up the upstairs rooms, and trying to stay sane. I have a table full of lists, lists of lists, piles of paper, reciepts, and ideas, and I don’t feel like I’ve been able to begin anything yet.

It’s too early to have any kind of set schedule at this point (especially as the rest of the house is in total chaos) but my plan is to start doing weekly illustration again, for real, and have a portfolio of new work built by the end of the year. Sometime in early 2006 I’d like to buy some pages in the big directories and try to solicit work. I’ll be posting new work on my portfolio site weekly starting next Monday (If I can move my fingers after sanding the floor in the kitchen), so keep an eye out for me.

Speaking of, follow the link to a series of pictures of our bombed-out kitchen. We’re now washing our dishes in the bathtub. Whoopee!

So I’ve been through this before. The last time this happened, I was working for a big fancy-shmancy firm in D.C., commuting three hours a day, and waiting for a real assignment. (They had me working on a favor site, called the Museum of Cake, for about a month. I’d come from the corporate dot-com world, and it was hard to shift gears into baked goods from satellite broadband delivery.)

That time, I had a pretty sizable war chest saved up. I also had a rock-bottom mortgage payment, I owned my car outright, and I was looking forward to some time to work on the basement of my house, so it kind of worked out. I spent most of those two months painting, putting up drywall, running electrical, and living frugally. I didn’t have the heart to work much on the computer—in fact, I took most of that month off from the computer entirely, looking only occasionally at my email. For a lot of reasons, I was depressed and demoralized. The industry I’d claimed as my own was in steep decline in Baltimore. Most of the shops who’d flown so high were now closed down. There was noplace to look for work locally, and I’d not spent enough time in D.C. to make contacts there.

This time is very similar, but also a little different. The mortgage payment is much bigger now, but we still don’t have to make any car payments. We have an equity line of credit, which isn’t the same as having money saved, but also means we’ve got an emergency fund. I’m looking at a house which needs a monumental amount of work, and I suddenly have a lot of time to do it. This time, I’ve also been keeping busy on the side doing freelance work, so I’ve got a current portfolio to draw from.

I’m going to use this as an opportunity and try not to look at it like a curse. I’ve been wanting to switch back over to web design full-time for a while now, and also resurrect my illustration career. The only thing that’s been keeping me from doing that is a lack of time. You’ll see the progress here and over on my portfolio site (which is going to see a major overhaul in the next couple of weeks) while I make about a million lists, start drawing again, continue developing websites, and try not to freak out too much about being self-employed.

I drove all the way out to work this morning in the rain, and before I got to unpack my laptop and settle into work, I was asked to meet some folks in the upstairs conference room. They had the look on their faces that I’ve seen before, and they said the things I’ve heard before. I packed my stuff back up and walked with someone to the entrance and shook his hand—no hard feelings—and left.

Know anybody who needs a web designer?

This weekend, Jen and I did something we usually never do—I took her to a real movie theater, and we saw Corpse Bride with other real live human beings. The real live people didn’t disappoint us either. We were four seats down from a group of loud, annoying high school kids who thought it was fun to throw M&M’s at each other, play games on their cellphone, and talk loudly during a nine-dollar movie. The movie itself was great, although it could have used (in my opinion) about five more minutes of exposition.

Saturday morning we met up with my old friend Jeff from New York, and his girlfriend Katie, for brunch at the Golden West. Due to the Race For The Cure clogging downtown traffic, it took us longer than anticipated to get into the city for pickup, but once we got into Hampden, things were better. It was great to catch up with Jeff, and we made tentative plans to have them back down for a visit in the future.

Saturday evening, we ventured back into the city again for an art opening at the Shinola gallery for our old pal Logan, who’s in town for a week or so. We picked up Rob and his wife and made our way to the wrong address on the wrong street (my fault) then followed a couple to the wrong address on the right street (Logan’s fault) and finally to the gallery door. It was great to see Logan again (Our visit was a surprise) and catch up with him; he’s been doing very well in L.A. and his art has come a long way. I also ran into a few other folks from the scene, including the daughter of an old friend and a few people from the MICA scene back in the day.

After the show, the four of us retired to the Brewer’s Art for a cocktail and some food, and we were able to score one of the tables by the window on the top floor. There’s nothing more cosmopolitan for a country mouse like me than to sip a vodka tonic among the hip and beautiful, if only for an evening.

My good friend Rob took me on a boat ride Sunday, on his ’68 Donzi. It’s a sexy little fiberglas speedboat with minimal styling and a LARGE engine. We crusied through the no-wake zone for a while, sipping coffee to the rumble of the engine behind us, until we got out to the open channel, and he opened up the throttle. It’s a fast enough boat that you feel like you’re on the edge of control, depending on the skill of the driver and the height of the waves—thankfully, the boatbuilder put an “oh-shit” handle in front of the passenger seat, because there’s no windshield and little else to hang onto. We zipped past the cabin cruisers and sailboats, out to Gibson Island, and turned for home in the flat wake of a passing boat. All in all, it was an excellent way to spend a warm October morning. Thanks, Rob!