Just got back from seeing the Counting Crows at the Roseland Ballroom. One of my favorite bands, they never tend to trot out a simple greatest hits set, and even when they play the songs everyone knows, they’ll mess with it. The phrasing is different. Adam will segue into other tunes, layer stories in. He’s always a fascinating performer.

I’m not a big bootleg guy, but every so often, I still listen to a show they did at The Warfield in January 2000, as Adam introduced phrases into earlier songs that seemed to pay off high dividends later when it became a whole rousing carnival barker freakout toward the end of the show. With a lot of performers, you can see the tracks, know what mood and vibe they’re trying to set, but he’s always a bit elusive, but the payoff is almost guaranteed.

Tonight, I even got to the venue in time to check out the opening act Wolf Creek, since I know Adam picked them, and his taste for new bands is pretty spot-on. With a lot of performers I enjoy, the stuff they like completely baffles me. But Adam’s stuff just clicks.

I got reasonably close to the stage by the time Counting Crows were set to take the stage, and I was surrounded by several different groups of friends all chatting about the concert, texting friends that they were there, getting jealous replies they’d then read to the others. It was a good vibe. Well, that was the assumption. And, to be fair, the assumption was mine. In hindsight, all the clues were there. I just projected things would be different when the band started playing.

The band comes out, launches into Round Here, and the crowd is immediately on board. As per usual, there are times when I’m not seeing Adam, but a mosaic of blurry little Adams, as dozens of people hold up iPhones to take pictrues and video. But it’s the first song, and an audience favorite, so things might get better. I always ponder why if you want a picture of a singer, you don’t even attempt to focus on him, but that’s sort of irrelevant.

Then the guy in front of me starts recording audio and video clips, and attaches them to the text message threads he had started earlier. This is dumb enough, but every time he sends one, he has to announce to the group that he just sent whomever a video of Adam singing, and he’ll be freaking out that he’s not here, etc. It seems like a dick move to keep sending blurry, unfocused video to someone who wishes they were at a show. But then you’re blocking my view when you do it, and then loudly shouting over the Counting Crows to tell everyone you’re doing it.

Ultimately, you’re bragging about something fictional, since the idea is that you’re at this show, and the recipient of your text message is not. I’d argue that neither of you is seeing a Counting Crows show. Like so many others, he is documenting an experience he isn’t having.

The people to my left are still miffed that they got to the venue early, but people crowded in around them, and that if they wanted to be close to the band, they could have come early, too. Compared to the texting braggard, at least this lady’s beef is related to the show, even though it’s pointless. It’s a GA show, people fill in gaps. The reason people keep moving in front of you is that gaps open up, and you stay in “your spot.”

Counting Crows are touring their new album, which is all cover songs, but not well-known songs or anything. Just songs from artists they like. I’ll admit I’m not as prepared as I’d like to be with the new album, but I’m at the show. Whatever Adam does for the next 100 minutes or so, I’m there for the ride. I quickly realize that when he isn’t playing a cut from August and Everything After, or a very well-known song from later albums, the GA haters catch up on their lives, as they seemingly met at the venue and haven’t seen each other in a while. Mostly with each other, and they even apologize to one another that they have to speak loudly. The volume is required since they are speaking over the Counting Crows… you remember? The band 20 feet in the other direction? Guy with the dreads singing a song? Guess not.

The lady next to me whips out her iPhone, and doesn’t start taking pictures of Adam, but instead shows her neighbors her garden and the new flowers she planted, including her new hydrangeas. As they talk, she sends the hydrangeas picture to someone who isn’t at the concert. This new technology keeps people connected, unless you want to connect to the singer you paid $60ish to see, you know, sing?

This has to be weird for the band, too. I mean, you never knew what was happening in a dark audience before. But now, every idiot in the room lights up their not-watching-the-band face with a bright LCD light. Oddly, the lesser known songs are when you do get a better chance to see Adam without a sea of iPhones in front of you, because people take more photos of the songs they like. I debate why you wouldn’t snap pics during the songs you like less, and just enjoy your favorite songs, since you know, they’re still photos? And this isn’t Vegas, Adam isn’t doing any costume changes and, unlike Cher, he sticks to one wig all night. A picture of Adam singing Mr. Jones looks exactly like Adam singing the song you don’t know. Again, logic, bad idea…

Another August tune and everyone’s singing along, until after the bridge Adam starts messing around, riffing, and seguing into something different and I’m amazed. It’s a quiet moment, as he brought the tempo and instrumentation down, and she decides to start talking some more to her friends. One of her friends even mentions, “Don’t you like this song?” and she says “Oh, this isn’t the song anymore, he’s doing something else, but he’ll probably come back to it.” I think her awareness of what was going on, coupled with her complete disregard for it, was all I could bear.

So, rather than stand 20 feet from the stage, when two people pushed past me to head toward the side, and our way out from near the front, I joined them. It was a sold out show, and two thirds over, so at that point, I just stayed in the back. The Crows were smaller, the sound a bit tinnier and not as good, and people still talked over everything, but since we were further back, they didn’t have to shout, and the band seemed louder than them. They also didn’t take as many pictures, and the ones they did were pretty amazing based on how out of focus they were coupled with them barely pointing the camera at the band.

The more I stood there, the more it hit me. These people had a choice whether to be close to the band or close to the bar, and chose the latter. When a popular song requiring audience sing-a-long happened, the drunk assessment was confirmed. These people didn’t sing politely. They were selling it like the drunkest karaoke singers ever. Don’t know the words? Doesn’t matter. We’re going for passion back here.

Compared to the “big fans,” these people are way more excited to be seeing the band. They’re also smoking pot and coming back with 3-4 drinks per person for their groups. So, maybe just more excitable, as well. But they’re definitely more fun than my previous neighbors.

This isn’t the first concert where these issues have come up. I guess my ideal concert is a reserved seated show with a great seat. I don’t know if a lot of people took pictures/video/etc. of Pulp, since I was in the second row, but I don’t care what goes on behind me, typically.

And I’m not a boisterous fan. I’m there to watch. It’s nearly like theater to me. I like seeing Adam lock eyes with another band member, and all the subtle business like that.

When I think of the Counting Crows, it is the subtle art and beauty in the lyrics, and the yearning, that draw me in. And it makes me wonder why this crowd isn’t as interested in those delicate moments, as well. They’re happening onstage right now, in front of us.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying no one but me understands it. I’m not even their biggest fan. Just a normal fan.

But Adam doesn’t even seem to tour every year, so to me the concerts are rare treats. I can exchange small talk with my friends tomorrow, and that’s fine. And they’ll have to suffer through without blurry video as proof of what I experienced tonight, or at least tried to. And that’ll be fine, too.

I went there to connect with someone whose number isn’t in my phone.

Shortly after moving to San Francisco in 1996, I got a job working at InfoWorld, which was targeted at IT professionals. I didn’t know much about the technology industry, but I had a background at a daily newspaper, and that is what they wanted: speed. I could learn technology quicker than they could get the old guard writing 3-4 stories a day in a new world where daily updated websites were growing up in the middle of weekly print publications.

With dot-com about to happen, it was a crazy time to be there. Shortly after starting, it became routine to attend events with industry leaders. On a dare from a boss, before a press conference, I would do things like walk up to Bill Gates and HP CEO Lew Platt, in a moment where they were miraculously not surrounded by PR, and cluelessly say “So, what’s the news today? I need to get this up on our website before it starts…” and see Gates get annoyed until his handlers got me away from them. A press conference will never result in much of a story, so you have to do things like that to amuse yourself. It’s not like Bill would stop e-mailing me tips and story ideas after that, so who cared?

At some point, whoever was covering Apple switched beats, and it was given to me. At that time, it was lumped in with a few other companies that were labeled as the ‘death watch,’ which was my beat. These are companies we expected to go out of business soon, so I was to cover them as that happened, but not spend much time on them otherwise. The managing editor or somesuch told me “You’ll never get in trouble for missing an Apple story.” He knew I was an Apple user, and an Apple fan, so he wanted to make sure I knew the other things I was covering were more important.

When Steve Jobs returned to the company, it wasn’t immediately clear things could be turned around. This was still before Mac OS X, iMacs, iPods, etc. He was clear-cutting the product line, and trying to go in a new direction, but there was still skepticism it would occur. For many people, it seemed like it could be too little, too late. I remember the stock trading at something that seems impossible now, less than $15 or so.

Somehow, I’d heard that the only way to get to Jobs was to avoid Apple entirely, with all of the e-mail screeners and process. Instead, if I sent an e-mail to his Pixar account after 6:30 p.m., the only person who would likely see it would be Steve. So, I wrote a story, e-mailed Steve, and asked for a comment. The next morning, there was a reply from Steve Jobs in my in box.

His e-mail style was what you’d expect. Nothing extraneous. Just the exact phrase he wanted attributed to him in the article, and nothing else.

This would become a bit of a pattern. If I was working on a story, I’d go home, wait until evening, e-mail Steve, and the next morning, I’d have my quote.

I then figured something else out. When I wrote an Apple story without a Steve quote, it wouldn’t get picked up in the print magazine. But every time there was a Steve Jobs quote, it would always get picked up. So, the powers that be didn’t care for Apple, but there was something about Steve.

I was at the Macworld keynote where Bill Gates appeared via satellite and got booed like he’d hacked his way onto the screen without permission, and at the following Macworld Expo in San Francisco, there was a release party for Microsoft Office for Mac. I can only imagine there was a chance this product wasn’t guaranteed at one point, and Jobs had to push for it to happen.

So, Jobs did a keynote that morning, and then was going to attend the Microsoft launch party that evening. Not only that, he was going to work a press line at the party. This was very uncharacteristic of him, and had to be contractual. It wasn’t his scene. His love of the Mac press was especially obvious.

In fact, the night before, he was given a Visionary Award or somesuch from Macworld magazine, and he didn’t attend. That morning, they figured they still had a window and brought their Visionary Award onstage as they introduced him to do the keynote (Macworld and its parent company, IDG, ran the conference back then, notoriously in the first week in January because it was the cheapest of the year, and Apple was headed south).

So, as part of the introduction, there is a bit of song and dance about his leadership and vision, and how they honored him last night at a dinner, so now they’d like to give him the award in person (an interesting admission that he hadn’t attended his own celebration). Steve walks out, says nothing about the award, just shakes the guy’s hand and plops it down on the stage without a mention, and does his keynote. So, like I said, not a huge fan of the press…

At the Microsoft party that night, his executive assistant says I should get in line, as it’s a rare opportunity to casually chat with Steve. I hated these events, too, so I figure I may as well chat with Steve before escaping. In line, the press all have their notebooks out and are a bit giddy, asking one another what they plan to ask him when it’s their turn. This seems bizarre to me. This guy just did a 2+ hour keynote this morning. He’s said everything he plans to, and probably doesn’t even want to be here, and you think you’re going to get a story out of it? I let them know I didn’t even bring a notebook and planned to ask him nothing.

The truth is, I didn’t really know why I was in the line. It was just something to do.

Finally, it was my turn, and I introduced myself. We had met before, e-mailed before, but weren’t overly familiar with each other in person, and then I proceeded to ask him… basically nothing about Apple or technology.

I asked him whether coming back to Apple was difficult as far as it affecting his family life. We talked about vegetarianism. And, around the time most press were being gently guided away, the opposite happened, and Steve pulled the two of us further back, leaving the line set-up entirely. And it was just small talk, and he seemed interested to be making small talk for a change, and I planned to not ask him a single thing that could lead to a story.

Finally, he turned things around. “So, how can we get more Apple coverage in InfoWorld?” and he mentioned that market was crucial to turning the company around.

I bluntly told him, “My boss said I’ll never get in trouble if I don’t write about Apple…”

“I don’t like the sound of that!”

“Well, the only thing I’ve noticed is that if you write me an e-mail with a quote I can plug into the story, it gets published. If you don’t, it doesn’t. So, they may not care about Apple, but you seem to have enough interest to get something through the system.”

“Then, I guess we’ll be exchanging a lot of e-mail,” he said, and smiled. And we shook hands, and that was that.

And, true to his word, it was pretty rare when I would e-mail him and not get a reply. Always brief, always with his spin (even when I would try to spin it a different way), and they got published.

They were always at night, always through the Pixar address, and Apple PR hated me. Despite our verbal agreement, and Steve knowing the backstory, it wasn’t something he shared with his handlers. So, he would copy them on his quote to me, and every morning, I’d get a call reminding me about the process of working with Apple. “If you need a comment from Apple, you contact me and I will put you through to the appropriate contact…”

I would interrupt them, and say, “You would get me a Steve quote?” They would say, “No, but…”

“So, I’m getting Steve Jobs quotes in all my stories, and you’re telling me there is a better system where that doesn’t happen?!”

Eventually, after keynotes, we’d run into each other, shake hands. He’d address me by name. I was so green about the industry when I first started, and just kind of thought of him as “Steve,” so it wasn’t until years later, when Apple had become what it is today, that I can look back and realize how crazy this moment in time truly was…

One time, I had ordered a new MacBook, back when they were really crazy expensive and heavy, and I got an e-mail saying my order was going to be delayed a few week due to some manufacturing issue. So, I tested the waters, and e-mailed Steve, asking if he could move it along. The system was Fedexed to me overnight without warning.

There was only one time when Steve and I had a heated e-mail exchange, back when Mac OS X was still in development. I’m a bit shady on the details, but I think it was the rumor was Mac OS X was going to built on top of Linux. That was the rumor on all the sites that week, and I was following up on it.

So, instead of our normal one quote, he just denied the rumor as untrue. I think he just wrote “Untrue” and that was the entire e-mail. I wrote back, asking if he could give me a quote for the story. This seemed to set him off (and I’m making up our quotes here, but this was the gist. I didn’t save any of these e-mails).

“Story? I just told you it is untrue.”

“I know, that’s what I’m running with. There’s a rumor circulating, and you are saying on the record that it is untrue… (which neither Apple nor Steve had said anywhere else at that point)”

“But if it’s untrue, there is no story!”

“No, if it’s untrue, the story is that Steve Jobs says the rumors are untrue…”

This went around for about 30 minutes, with about 40 e-mails back and forth. I’m sure I was stepping close to something that wasn’t quite nailed down yet, but if there’s a rumor, and you have Steve on the record denying it, you certainly have a story. I mean, look at the Mac sites now and what they’ll run with…

Now, to be fair, the problem here was that my bosses knew Jobs had denied it. So I couldn’t go back on it. Had the exchange happened earlier, I’d've probably taken him out of the story to preserve the relationship, and just had someone “in the know at Apple” or somesuch deny it without attribution. But he’d replied too late, and we ran with the story including him denying it.

Over time, I had finally worked out with his assistant that Steve was going to do a Q&A in InfoWorld, specifically geared toward what Apple was doing to make Macs integrate well within the corporate landscape, and not something to be gutting out of their systems and replacing with PCs. Of course, this was rescheduled for a while, because Apple wanted to hook it to some announcement and not just do a random Q&A, not that a random Steve Jobs interview wouldn’t attract attention. They just wanted to make sure the attention was backing up something they were ready to announce.

One morning, I got an e-mail from Steve’s assistant, saying that my boss at InfoWorld had contacted them, saying that InfoWorld wanted to move ahead with the Jobs interview but that she would be doing it, not me, as part of a new series of interviews with industry leaders they were launching. Completely bogus.

The assistant said she wasn’t sure Steve would go for it, and I said I wasn’t happy about it, either. So, I said, just write back and tell her “Steve has a relationship with Jeff, not InfoWorld, so that is the only way this interview will proceed.” A minute later, an e-mail hits my inbox, from Steve’s assistant to my boss and me blind copied, with the exact phrase I wrote as though she had written it. It was kind of nice knowing that, somehow, I actually had built a very small in-road like that. It was true, though, there was no reason he had to do that interview, and I had been very good as far as covering Apple despite my initial marching orders saying I needn’t bother.

In 1999, I left InfoWorld to go work in PR for Macromedia. As our Q&A had been on-again, off-again, I wanted to let him know it wouldn’t be happening, so I wrote him a note, and he just replied “Good luck at Macromedia!” and I think that was our last exchange more than a decade ago.

So, with the news about Steve today that we all knew was coming, but hoped his doctors would be able to work around, these are my memories of Steve Jobs.

NYC is becoming a reality.

The odds of my contract being renewed are slim and, even if it is, it would only be 3 to 6 months. So, even that would only be a delay. I’m not even concerned about pushing things off until closer to Spring, actually. M

oving to NYC in January? *shiver*

At present, the plan is to sell off most of my possessions, ship the rest east Thanksgiving weekend, finish off my contract while living in my stripped-down-to-nothing apartment through November 30, and then get on a plane on December 1.

From there, I’ll start job and sublet hunting from PA in December, since I can easily pop into NYC whenever I need to for job interviews, etc. After the holidays, I will make a concerted effort to move ASAP and start this new adventure.

To be honest, I haven’t really had much time to focus on the actual move, since I’ve been selling and purging so much lately. Pretty soon, the apartment will be stripped down to the essentials, most of the boxes packed, and I’ll have more time to think about things. Right now, there is always something else to do.

The most popular question, though, is also the one that never enters my mind: “So, you’re really moving to NYC?”

When I left my rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco and moved to the suburbs two blocks from work, in the middle of nowhere, that was when the decision to move to NYC was made. There’s never been a hesitation. Now, I’m just executing the plan. And it’s not like I ever really expressed any hesitation about moving to NYC.

I have some natural concerns, like what sort of employment I’ll find, but honestly, you could ask the same question if I stayed here. I’m about to be unemployed either way. I’m just deciding where to do it.

So, I have another month to queue things up. I figure that by early November, the move will be triggered or not, and I’ll know for sure whether I’m moving. And then it will just be schedules, plane tickets, craigslist postings, and all of that craziness. Or not. I plan to be well ahead of the curve.

All of the things I do these days were decided for me a long time ago, but I don’t know why anymore.

On a recent trip to Las Vegas, I brought a handful of books to read. I am always overly optimistic about my free time in Vegas, on top of forgetting things like the pool being a loud disco party and not a reading environment.

The book I ended up reading was Jim Crace’s Being Dead, which to be fair, was a pretty horrible pick for the setting, but a wonderful book overall. It starts with an older couple naked and dead on the beach, and then the narrative bifurcates. On one hand, we see how they met and how their lives got them to that moment of death on the beach. On the other, we see their bodies slowly decompose on the beach, until they are found, and relatives are notified.

It wasn’t the type of book that meshes well with Wham! singing Freedom loudly at the pool. But as much as I enjoyed the narrative, it was the larger mystery that kept gnawing at me. Why do I own this book? Who is Jim Crace? Why do I have three of his books on my shelf if I never read him before? Did Chuck Palahniuk or Stephen King give him a shout-out at some point, which brought him to my attention?

These days, nearly every book I read falls into this mystery genre. It helps even more that the books I am reading now are naturally the older ones on my shelf, because of my methodology.

I am trying to convert all of my books, except the barest of signed copies, important works, and out of print stuff, in preparation of moving. So, the irony is that I love the Kindle, but don’t read anything on it. My books are catalogued in a spreadsheet, and I occasionally search for illegal downloads of them online. Once I have an electronic version, the dead-tree version of the books are given away to people who stop by, or I sell them at a used bookstore, and use that money to buy other e-books off of the list. The goal is to spend no money and replicate what I already paid for, which in my twisted logic counts as a legal undertaking. The publishing industry would disagree. To be fair, though, in my hunt for these books, I have encountered dozens if not hundreds of other books I would love to read, and I don’t download them. I’ll buy them when I decide to read them.

So, my spreadsheet also includes whether there is an e-book version of the book on my shelves, and I am mainly reading the ones that don’t have electronic versions. So, part of reading every book is wondering why I own it, what I wanted to learn from it or achieve by reading it.

When I’m not doing that, I am watching TV series on DVD so I can get rid of those, too. While watching the shows, I am also feeding old film negatives into a scanner so that I can also discard the negatives before moving. It is a weird surrender or sorts, to read what has to be read, watch what can be resold, and scan vacations that have long since ended.

It brings up moments of surprise, happiness, and melancholy dependent on the day. And there is certainly incentive to finish this whole project, as I suspect things will be forever changed.

Once the paper books are gone, I will be entirely on e-books. After I finish scanning these negatives, I doubt I’ll ever use a film camera again in my life. And I’m trying to stay current with my TV anymore, which will be easier with the new delivery methods about to come out. A majority of my boxed sets are from shows on HBO, Showtime, etc., so as those businesses reinvent themselves, there will be easier methods to watch shows without huge monthly cable bills, as I don’t have a television.

It is slightly troublesome to approach art as some sort of homework that needs to get done, but usually in the moment of watching it, that element disappears.

Of course, the final frontier, and based on the pictures one that has been just as ongoing… I have clothes in many sizes, and I’d like to move with just one, and not the one I’m currently wearing.

I have, of course, come up with a strategy to integrate this in with the other projects, though, and am now looking to find possible audiobooks of the content without e-books and listen to these during my workouts, walks, or whatever they end up being. This will require some scheduling, as I don’t like reading two ficitonal things at the same time, so the dead trees book and the audio will need to be different genres, but otherwise, that should work.

I’m slowly getting there, but I do look forward to a time when I am living my own life in the present again. It isn’t going to happen very soon, though.

On Saturday, I went up to San Francisco to see Cats and Joe Rogan (two separate shows, not a double bill). For lunch, I was at the Embarcadero farmer’s market. I didn’t buy much stuff, since I had a 12-ish hour day planned in the city and would have to carry whatever I bought on my back all day. I got a handful of apriums to eat during the day, and a small bottle of unfiltered olive oil, but I was mainly there for lunch.

Alive! is the live food stand at the farmer’s market and, after checking out their offerings, I went with the “burger.” It was smaller than a slider, with a side salad. The bun portion was a dense concoction, the burger some sort of almond pate, I think, with what can only be described as miniature avocado slices on top. I’ve never witnessed an avocado this small in my life.

I understand the idea that raw food dishes are oftentimes smaller, since the nutrient density is much higher, etc. But eating this strange burger, it reinforced what I haven’t been able to overcome on my raw food transition after 3 weeks: a lot of the food seems ridiculous to me.

I seem happiest when I am having fresh salads and smoothies. Anytime I try to make raw bread or somesuch in the dehydrator, it often tastes good. But, still reads as very weird.

So, as I expect, this burger is a bit off. This isn’t a new thing and often occurs with various homemade veggie burgers, as well. Basically, the bun is way stronger than the burger, so everything just mushes out the sides. From a consistency standpoint, it was more like eating hummus between two solid oatmeal raisin cookies.

All of these fauxfoods bring me out of the diet, and they are often so radically different from what they are poorly imitating, they seem to fail by a comparison they both create and fail to live up to. If you slice the “bun” thinner, and just made the pate more of a dip, it would probably taste fine. But, call it a burger, and you set expectations.

So, I thought about the plan that I think I’ve been gravitating towards anyway. Which is to stick on a plan of: smoothies for breakfast, salads for lunch, and whatever cooked thing (or not) I want for dinner. So, I weighed the options of staying 100% raw longer, and came up flat.

A lot of the benefits are hard to attribute solely to raw foods. I’ve been getting more sleep, going to bed earlier, but I’ve been off caffeine. I’ve had more energy, but I’ve been getting more sleep and not snacking on any junk at work. I’ve been losing weight, but eating healthier. I haven’t used any antacids, but I stopped drinking diet soda at work.

So, my plan for dinner after seeing Cats was to go to Millennium and have their raw entrée (usually an appetizer that has an entrée portion), but instead… I had cooked food.

I was slightly concerned that there might be some re-entry problems, things that one might not desire being away from home, or taking public transportation home that night, but nothing really happened.

So, anymore, two of my meals will be nearly raw (salads may have some bean/smoked tofu on occasion), and then dinner will be cooked and the final food of the day. Plus, it isn’t anything over the top. Last night, my dinner was a sauté of zucchini, corn, tomatoes and some basil. My non-raw dinners will likely adhere to the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss program, which doesn’t allow breads, pastas, oils, etc.

This seems far more reasonable to me. We’ll see how it goes.

Just checking in with a raw food update…

Starting last Monday morning, I’ve had nothing but raw foods. Minus a few pasteurized hiccups like coconut water.

The main reason for doing this was that my previous diet had sort of gotten too far removed from the purity it should have. I wanted my diet to be more nutrient dense, and not animal-free processed junk. It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t even go to Millennium without needing Tums afterward.

I do think the biggest cause here was that when I started commuting to Symantec, I was tired out of my brain, so I started drinking diet soda. Once I moved to get rid of the awful commute, the diet soda continued. But even beyond that, more pizza and other vegan junk food had crept into my usual routine.

Rather than “moderation,” a word most people use when they’re going to pretend to take action, I decided to reset things with a raw foods diet. I never committed to doing 30 days raw, or anything like that. So, could be a lifetime, could be a week… I didn’t really want it to be a countdown.

So, the upsides to date…

There is something amazing about doing a green smoothie for breakfast. I prefer them very liquid and drinkable, as I don’t have time in the morning to chew-swallow a dense smoothie. A few days into the week, I tried a spinach, kiwi, mango, banana smoothie, and honestly, I’m hooked. If this how raw foodies have to suffer, no problem. I don’t need cereal again if this is an option.

Kale is OK in the morning smoothie, but it is definitely a denser, greener taste. Spinach just disappears, but still delivers a lot of great green action.

Lunch is always a very light salad. And the strange part is I’ve rarely had full-on dinners. Some days a handful of nuts and dried fruit, or some other snacking, but I’ve never felt like I needed more food. This is highly unusual for me, so it does drive home that the smoothie is delivering a lot of nutrients, because I normally had large dinners.

It is hard to judge my energy levels, since raw food advocates always talk about how much they have, since I spent a lot of the week coming off of caffeine. Technically, I could brew sun tea and be fine, and I know tea doesn’t upset my stomach the way the diet soda did, but I figured it was better to reset things entirely.

Some days, I napped after work. Others, I didn’t. One long day had me going to work for 8 a.m., up to San Francisco for a Paul Simon concert, home on the midnight train, and not going to bed until 3 a.m., so I can stay up if I have reason to.

Usually when I anticipated being tired, I sort of felt a mild yet constant stream of energy. Perhaps this is how much energy I have naturally, when I’m not augmenting it with caffeine. But it was interesting to give myself space to notice it, and acknowledge that it is enough to keep me going.

I stopped going to the gym, figuring I should give myself some time to adapt to this first, anticipating the headaches and low energy being an issue. That was probably unnecessary, and I’ll resume going this week. Perhaps expending more calories there will add dinner back in.

The downsides to date…

Most of the week, I didn’t have time to “cook” raw dishes, just eat salads and smoothies. So, this weekend, I remedied that with some flax crackers, as well as rye and zucchini flatbreads.

They came out fine, taste OK, but after so much time on McDougall, I don’t really eat a lot of sandwiches and such, so it seems odd to build a raw analog to something I don’t eat when I’m not raw. I’ll have to find some hummus recipe and just use the breads for dipping.

I also think there is something as far as the faux nature of it that doesn’t rub me the right way. It seems OK to spoof meat dishes people may have grown accustomed to and still like the mouth feel and flavor palette of, like a burger or chicken patty, and making a vegan version of that. But it seems strange to need to spoof bread, and sort of only reinforces how off the beatan path you’ve gone.

At present, I think I may take a Mark Bittman approach when this eventually plays out. He is vegan until 6, and then eats anything he wants. I may be raw all day, and then roll vegan in for dinner. But I’m not leaving raw for a few more weeks, so no need to worry about proclamations just yet. That is just the current thinking. There is always opportunity to revisit.

I think the lesson here is that the more I stray from the foods in their natural state, the less inclined I am to enjoy them. I bought the ingredients for some shredded Asian salads, which I should by all common sense be having in my normal vegan diet, considering how quick I am to order them when I dine out. So, it’s a good time to add that knowledge to the arsenal.

I think I’m going to keep arcing toward amazing raw salads and such moreso than the raw entrees. If I see one that looks interesting, I’ll try it out. But that doesn’t seem to be the goal.

I also think there is a case for making complex things to tart up salads, so the raw marinated portobellos that you can eat as a burger sound more interesting as a salad component to me. Again, the trigger point seems to be that when I’m eating a raw portobello mushroom between two pieces of dehydrated zucchini flatbread, that the diet seems a bit silly. The same mushroom sliced up in my salad, however, sounds amazing.

But otherwise, everything is fine with eating raw.

I think the biggest drawback is that I’m not giving raw a good comparison. I went from what I consider a lax slightly junk food vegan diet to a healthy, raw diet. So, you can’t say raw is better than vegan, because that form of vegan was off.

But I didn’t have a Tums all week, so there is that…

I don’t weigh myself, so can’t provide any numbers there. I think I’ve lost a bit of weight being raw, but I haven’t hit a point where I can be certain of that yet.

So, in any case, for the time being, the rawvolution continues…

Just got back from Easter dinner with the family here, and it was nearly entirely a cooked meal. Tomorrow, when I wake up, I will have a raw green smoothie and continue to eat raw for… who knows how long?

If you read about the raw food movement, it is hard not to find it attractive. These are people who claim to have boundless energy, youthful glows, blissful sleep, satiety, weight loss, you name it. A lot of people hit the immediate hurdle of “no cooked food,” and stop right there. Well, that’s not true, most people actually have something to say against it.

Like being vegan, being raw isn’t benign, because you are challenging the food choices of everyone you talk to when you mention it. This isn’t true, of course, as I really don’t care what other people do. I will only try this for me, write about it here, share the good and bad (expect caffeine headaches early this week), and then live with this information however it suits me.

The family reaction has largely been opposed to it, mainly turning it into what food they’ll have to make for me now, etc., although I live alone nowhere near most of them. So, it is completely silly to worry about such a thing. If I’m still raw when that becomes an issue, then I will be so into raw food by then, I’ll be the one preparing meals for everybody.

I am willing to take diet advice from anyone not taking any diet-related medications… Anyone? Hello? Jeez, talk about clearing a room…

Anyway… Will I be 100 percent raw starting tomorrow? Well, yes, but for how long… who knows? Did I just eat my last cooked meal? That seems unlikely, but I’m in no position to say.

I do know that my diet is way too acidic, and that I wanted to focus on my alkalinity more. (I am conscious that most people don’t ponder their alkalinity, btw). The more I read about alkalinity, the more I noticed there was a lot of raw references, that merely eating raw sort of took the guesswork out of alkalinity.

And I’ve always been interested in raw cooking… and by raw cooking, I do not mean raw restaurant food. I don’t want oily, fatty, rich dishes, which often seemed to be the case when I tried eating out raw (which only sounds like a porn title). I have a lot of nuts here, but I anticipate them playing a sidekick role at best.

I think the biggest hurdle to eating raw is being associated with the raw food movement. The more you read, the more the raw diet cures HIV, cancer, bad skin, and every known ailment. Having read these books, I do have to caution myself not to expect my left elbow, which I broke in the 6th grade, to finally heal properly now that I’m about to eat raw. So, the bar is set so high as to the power of the diet, it does make you question whether the boundless energy, and everything else is true.

The good part is… it is going to be a healthy diet. I will be eating more greens and fresh produce than I have been. And I’m not committed to it. If I’m not liking it, and not feeling any of the upside, then I’ll take whatever recipes I scored in the process, and go back to tweaking my vegan diet more. Not on Wednesday, but you know, at some point, I can make that call…

The raw food stuff also requires discipline, structure, and scheduling, so it is also dovetailing with me finally getting back to my writing, which needs all of the same things, as well. So, raw flax seed crackers that take 12 hours to dehydrate will just be an easy thing to build into my schedule.

And, if I’m potentially moving back east this year, the writing and diet need to get into high gear before New York anyway.

So, I will be writing things here pretty often, probably more in the beginning, and just sharing what I’m learning, feeling, thinking and doing. Unlike the recent detox diet of a year ago or somesuch, which was the same boring thing over and over, and didn’t lend itself to regular updates, the raw food thing should be different, as it is a new adventure.

The last time I was going raw, it was junk food raw at best. I remember getting a lot of raw “products” and truffle oil(?) and stuff that has no connection to my view of raw food this time around.

And, the upside is… if I stick with the raw thing, moving is even easier, since I can sell all my pots and pans.

When I go Thailand, I don’t have a routine. I don’t have places to go, places to be, etc. There are no patterns. It is why I go there to write, although there is nothing unique about Thailand in this regard. If you go anywhere new or unfamiliar, this can happen.

Walking around Mountain View a few days this week after work, and I find myself with a lot of the same questions. Where would I go for this? Am I very far from that?

Initially in Thailand, I only learn where to get staples, and sort out some restaurants I may want to try later.

In San Francisco, I have patterns. If I am going to do A, I can also do B, C, and D along the way. If I get off at this BART stop, I can eat and X, Y, or Z.
Part of the goal of moving is to keep those patterns to a minimum. Where is the gym? Where is the grocery store? How do I get to work? And leave as many other things stack up for dinner parties, less-frequent ZipCar runs and city excursions.

This will enable me to build my primary patterns around writing and working out. I always return from Thailand having lost weight and written a lot. So, this will be an interesting experiment, seeing if I can use that model closer to home. These are also the primary patterns I want to migrate to NYC.

A weak argument can be made that all of these things can also be done in San Francisco. It is true, of course (before I started this commute), but it seems much easier to build a new foundation on writing and working out, and then, when that is established, start looking to fold other things back in. This is an easier method than taking nearly 15 years of living in an area and not doing those things, and trying to add them in. If I had a job in the city, this is what I would be attempting, though.

As such, I really need the apartment I pick to be comfortable. I need a place I want to go home to, like living in, and it feels like a nurturing space. That is what I’m looking for. A lot of the places down here are old places build in the 60s, and look like dreary oppressive worker bee motels from the outside. Who knows? Maybe they look nice inside and have been totally updated. I won’t necessarily rule them out, but the more upscale places have provided a better vibe from the outset.

So, the search continues, but can’t drag on forever. My contract ends in November, so if I am signing a 12 month lease, that is now overlapping into when I may not have a job (Many places will let you specify how long the lease is, so I could ratchet is down to end in December). The notion that this job could end before November is something I will plan for financially, as far as saving more money before I start anything that involves spending, but honestly, I can’t prep much more for that.

That is the current state of things. I am going to get a car and tool around Mountain View on Saturday, to try and see more places at once, instead of doing one-offs after work every day. More details soon.

Still thinking the move will happen soon. I plan to start spending some more time around Mountain View this week, checking things out. View some apartments after work, etc.

Most people seem to agree with the goals of the move. The formula I am using for the whole thing is PPLS.

Whenever I have some resistance, I remind myself that my goal for 2011 is PPLS.

PPLS is:
- Paid
- Published
- Launched
- Skinny

PPLS is how I need to enter NYC. You don’t go to NYC to rehearse and plan, you go there to execute, and I need to focus and prepare. I think they’re pretty obvious, but to break it down more:

PAID. I am working a contract and making sure I do a really good job because I want to keep the gig and do well at it. I am also using this job to raise money for both the NYC move and hiring a developer for my website.

PUBLISHED. Time to finish the novel, start writing new things, and get into a very specific routine about sectioning off my day where a chunk is for work, a chunk is for writing, a chunk is to work on myself, and a chunk is to unwind. I don’t like freedom, so this system needs to get nailed down more, so that when I move to NYC, I have more discipline to focus. Paying jobs, websites, everything is supposed to be about building me enough freedom to write, and it is often the last thing I get around to. If I can’t manage this in California, forget NYC, so there is a year to batten down the hatches. Living an hour outside of the city is good practice, because I need to remember that play time is earned and happens when everything else you need to do is already completed.

LAUNCHED. The goal for NYC isn’t to look for another job, or at least another full-time job. I want to launch a vegan social network this summer, and start building a community around it. If I can launch it by this summer, then I should be getting it to the point where it is growing and needing some full-time attention, so when I do move, I’m going there as my own boss and not moving to figure out what to do for work, money, etc.

SKINNY. Pretty obvious one. And nothing new. But a definite thing for 2011. There is also another reason for this, which is that I’m launching a vegan social network largely centered around health and wellness. So, I’d like to launch it without irony. Plus, I want to be healthier, exuberant and skinny.

PPLS is the metric for everything. Nothing about PPLS requires San Francisco. PAID requires Mountain View. The other goals require my time, focus, energy, and commitment, which the commute depletes.

So that is what PPLS is all about.

My New York City moving proclamations are pretty common, especially after I’ve recently visited… But this time could really be the big one, Elizabeth.

I recently switched jobs, and am now on a contract that should last through the end of November (there is an off-chance it could even extend 6 months beyond that).

So, the goal is to treat the contract as the countdown.

Initially, I didn’t think as much of doing this, since I’d done it before with 15 months at eBay. The commute isn’t my favorite, but I can survive.

But the more I think about it, the more I think I should pack up and move to Mountain View to do this contract.

Let me walk through the thinking here and see if any major gaps in logic arise.

First, let me state that I prefer living in urban environments, and I am only considering this move because of it serving as a countdown timer to NYC.

Right now, I spend 12.5 to 13 hours a day doing my 8 hour job, with four forms of public transportation on each end (walk to BART, BART, Caltrain, company shuttle).

Also, this contract job is not one where working from home is an option. It is 5 days a week, onsite. Not an issue, I knew that going in.

To prepare for New York City, aside from reading and discarding as many hardcover books as possible, there are four major goals to lock down:
- Finish the edits on my novel
- Start the new book of essays
- Launch my startup by summer
- Lose weight

The obvious part to me is that none of these items requires me to live in the city. So, when people say you will have too much free time and nothing to do… well, I should be doing one of those four things.

As for events in SF, I would still attend. The southbound train runs up until midnight. I’m already probably going to attend less things because of my commute even though I’ll be sleeping in SF.

As for clubbing in SF, I gained too much weight to really care about that. I’d rather get skinny for NYC than try and sell this version in CA.

As for my rent-controlled apartment in SF, the plan is to leave after this contract anyway, so I’m commuting to a place to sleep, with barely any time to enjoy the surroundings, and when the contract ends, I’m leaving.

The only real risk is the contract ending early. It shouldn’t happen, but who can tell?

Anything other unforeseen thing that would keep me in CA after this job would be exceptional enough to make everything else irrelevant anyway (boyfriend, great job, etc.).

I’m currently paying like $200ish a month to commute to this job, so even if I took a Zipcar for 2 hours on any whim, it would be cheaper. I’d probably just get a bike and stick to public transportation. Of course, I’d also find a place VERY convenient as far as commuting to this job and walking to nearly everything.

The other criteria would be close proximity to as many of these as possible: 24 Hour Fitness, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, movie theater, good restaurants.

I’d rather stay on the Light Rail line, than Caltrain, so Mountain View would be the north-most point.

Just a quiet place with a lot of cooking, reading, writing, with regular hops up to San Francisco.

The other upside is I would get a good purge-move in before NYC, and thin out my possessions a bit.

I keep trying to poke holes in this thinking, but I can’t find them.

The big move in all of it is that it is the initial step toward NYC, because if that wasn’t the goal, the whole thing wouldn’t make any sense. I’d just push through the gig and in November, I’d probably not have finished the novel, need to lose weight, etc.

I’d rather figure out a way to tie up all the loose ends in California, and hit the ground running in NYC…

I can’t think of nearly as many reasons not to do it.