And the speeds aren’t so bad, either:

• Japan — Halloween (1979)

You’re nervous, you don’t know exactly where to go, you feel lost in the maze of cafeteria queues, and you don’t actually end up doing much work. And this first day was no exception.

I ran into someone I’ve seen before (only on the internet of all things; I must have better visual memory than I thought), and also ran into someone I already knew (the husband of a former coworker of mine in New York). The fact that the office is so far away from home is a nuisance, but they have a large cafeteria and I doubt I’ll have much time to get away on lunch breaks, at least for the first few months.

Maybe it’s because of the economic uncertainty, and the uncertainty in my recent past, but I am very cautious and the slight sick feeling in my stomach hasn’t quite subsided. We shall see.

• Cowboys International — Here Comes A Saturday (1979)

Downtown Seattle from Beacon Avenue. This is what you might call the “long way home”.

This was a self-portrait I took with my tripod above Interstate 5 between Pike and Pine Street, at the dog run.  I had been crying, and for some reason I thought I should capture that on film.

February: My favorite camera broke after I slipped on the ice outside my house, leaving most of the month uncaptured.  But once I sold my computer and bought a cheaper netbook, I found enough money for a new camera and managed to document my last few weeks of living in Seattle.

I always loved hiking up to this viewpoint — in the Mount Baker neighborhood, high above the tunnels that carried Interstate 90 to downtown.  This is facing Mercer Island and points eastward in late afternoon.

I loved the double meaning of this place.  I also loved that I was one of the few people who actually walked through my neighborhood on foot.  People used to talk about how ghetto Rainier Valley was, but I loved it.  I may have not liked living in Seattle, but I adored the city itself, who is defenseless and held captive by its largely annoying citizens.

March: A major transitional month, as I moved from Seattle on the 1st and visited San Francisco before moving back to Austin.  I met a very special old friend there and fell in love with San Francisco’s cheerfully painted depravity.

Goodbye Seattle.  At the time I would have laughed at the thought of missing the city, but somehow I do.

The people and the buildings of San Francisco are so inviting and too pretty, even if they remain largely unkempt.

April: Getting used to the reality of having to live in Austin.  I didn’t have a car yet so I managed to capture a fair amount of the city at street level.  I was still in denial about the terrible, terrible summer that would soon be coming.

It might be exciting to see all these new buildings sprouting up in Austin, but I only photographed them out of lack of anything else interesting in the city.

May: More of the same.  I was about to sink into a deep depression that coincided with the extremely hot weather that began in the middle of month (and lasted through September.)  I also lost my camera on a bus (these were from a borrowed camera).

June: I got a new car and a new camera, but the heat and the loneliness make it perhaps the most depressing month of my life.   (And that’s not exaggeration or hyperbole, it’s the truth.  I cried almost daily.)

July: another terrible month spent in hell (temperature-wise, employment-wise, and in a number of other ways).  I was beginning to wonder if my life was in a tailspin that I would never be able to overtake.  It was over 100 degrees most days.  I spent most of my time doing very irresponsible, harmful things.  But I also did a few harmless things, like drove around the hill country and photographed the dry nothingness.

August: Everything had come to a head.  The weather, my personal situation, the direction of my life.  I had to get out of town to think things through.

September: became suddenly unemployed, had to sell my camera that I had just bought.  But I moved in with my aunt and that lifted my spirits somewhat.  The drought was still terrible.

October: The drought subsided, I had a birthday and began to get desperate for money. My love for photography decreased dramatically, but only out of necessity and the austerity of the moment.

November: Started working part-time to make ends meet, applied for food stamps multiple times but received no response, gained probably 8 pounds. Went to Houston. (Woo!)

December: the first hint at financial solvency comes in the form of a phase I clinical trial. My passion for almost everything has been stunted, but I’m saving it for a place that I can really belong to instead of simply exist in. 2010 has to get better, it just has to. Because I can’t do another 2009, I just can’t.

Best wishes to you in the next decade.

• Eddie & Sunshine — People Talk
• Bagarre — For Your Pleasure
• Nathalie — Mon cœur qui craque
• Munich Machine — It’s For You
• Pet Shop Boys — Paninaro
• Space Opera — Mandate My Ass
• Fatal Error — Fatal Error
• Living in Texas — Tumbling Values
• Thrift Bakery — Shake Your Jewelry
• The Passions — The Letter
• Mecano — Hijo de la luna

I’ve been having a wee bit of writer’s block lately, which never used to stop me before (I would just resort to more Youtube video posts and such), but lately I’ve been thinking that I need to have more of a purpose in my communication, instead of blowing meaningless effluvia across the internet’s hot coals.

I’ve also been kind of busy — I have had a temp job for a few weeks now (which I don’t enjoy whatsoever, and which is an insult to my skill set — I’ll just leave it at that), and I have also been undergoing a clinical trial to make some extra cash. But I am keeping my eye on the prize — a future of financial solvency, for one, and getting this awful year behind me, two. 2009 will go down as one of the worst on record — it would be the worse, if not for the fact that I said 2008 was the worst, and I don’t like to contradict myself.

That being said, I am actually looking forward to 2010, because all this pent-up energy I have — to travel, to live healthfully, to live elsewhere, to refocus and reacquaint myself with normalcy, it might just become a groundswell that will finally take me out of this malaise I’ve had for the past few years.

As for the end of December, I’m trying my hardest to be saccharine and sentimental about the holidays, and searching for things for which to be thankful.

Oh, I did find one thing — this Christmas commercial from 1980 that combines kittens with synthesizers in a cloying mix of near-tears nostalgia. Watch!

Happy holidays, everyone.