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.