“Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist’s need for systematic reflection demands it.” -C. Wright Mills

Perhaps I’ve become a hikikomori. I haven’t left our apartment for days. I hardly leave my room. I’ve no relations outside my family and this self-referential writing, which is a mere pretense of relations with the outside world. Oh, no, wait, I’m studying for my exam.

I just made slight but dubious improvements to the sidebar. I’m working toward a masterful overhaul, especially since I was told by an authoritative blogger that my site looks a bit girly. Not that I mind being a bit girly, mind you, but it confirms that the image I’m giving off is not that intended (whate’er I intend). She also short-circuited any thoughts I might have had of recreating the old design with random greyscale backgrounds by saying that this was much easier to read. I do want randomness, but I’ll have to find another way to work it in. Maybe transparency will still work….

Outside of that, as you can see, I’m hard at work studying for my comps. I don’t know if it’s the deadline or the immensity of the task that frustrates me so, but I have been a procrastinating slug. It looks like I’ve played about 150 games of Freecell over the last week. So many games, in fact, that even Freecell is losing its addictiveness. So, today, today, right after I finish this post (and bathe and study some stats and get a fresh glass of water and poke around in a new book and…) I start in earnest. No distractions, simply work.

And a happy birthday goes out to Yoonkyung. 25 cent chicken wings and beer tonight at 110th and Amsterdam to celebrate.

So my big exam has been postponed a couple of days and I have to change the questions. It turns out that this second exam is intended to be more practical and applied. So I have to retool. I’m not sure if this makes it easier or harder. That’s the future of my planning.

For the program, however, we’ve got a really exciting event coming up. In light of Susan Fainstein’s imminent departure, some of us have decided to take the opportunity to address the question it raises: What is the future of planning as a practice and as a discipline? And guess who we have coming? Great lineup. First Ann Forsyth, who taught at Columbia once long ago, trained first as an architect, runs a design lab at University of Minnesota, and works quite left. Second, Ken Reardon, who is an ebullient, charismatic man who teaches at Cornell and heads the Planner’s Network. He has been very much an advocate planner working for poor communities (though some of my colleagues have their reservations about his capacity for his adherence to participatory approaches). He’s probably furthest left of the group. Third, Ray Gastil, about whom I know nothing except that he was director of the Van Alen Institute before becoming head of the Manhattan office of the Dept. of City Planning and that architects seem to know and like him. And finally, but by no means lastly, one of the great figures of planning, Norm Krumholz, the father of equity planning and former head of the AICP. And the icing on the cake is that Reinhold Martin, an architecture professor who I know little about but is heading the search committee for Susan’s replacement and other future hires, is going to moderate. So we have a person from outside the discipline but currently engaged in the future of planning asking the questions and stimulating the debate. It’s going to be a booming discussion. (January 30th, 6:30-8:00pm, Columbia University, Avery Hall, Wood Auditorium)

30 billion pounds of steam surge under the streets and buildings of Manhattan every year.

Just before waking this morning, I was dreaming that I was deeply dissatisfied with my life. It was a disturbing sensation to say the least. I don’t think it’s the case in a substantive material fashion; it struck me as a deeper existential discomfort, a discomfort that cannot be resolved save through long meditation. (Kevin, if you’re out there, perhaps you can shed some light on this.)

On another tip–or perhaps unconsciously related–I wanted to put out a little more troubled memory processing. I guess it’s the end of the year and I’ve gotten to thinking about old friends. (Actually, I suppose it’s the reunion that triggered it.) I wanted to give public props out to my college buddy Chris K. Though he or anyone close to him is highly unlikely to come across this post, he has played an instrumental role at important times in my life and I have not given him the credit he deserves. Our relationship has been one of close comraderie and fundamental conflict as our aesthetic ideas (at a detailed level) and our approaches to making it through this lifetime have been in disagreement. While I have prized the spontaneity and undirected approach found in Kerouac and Buddhism, he has assiduously pursued a career in publishing and loves the careful construction of Rilke. That said, under the firm structure of a goal-oriented life, he may very live more spontaneously than I, as I tend to reflect on the implications of the smallest of immediate actions.

Chris has, however, been part of the some of the most formative episodes in my life. We drove cross-country together. As mentioned above, he has long served as my aesthetic foil. Perhaps most importantly, in a moment of well-justified exasperation with my aimlessness and moaning about a future, he is the one who asked me what choice other than going back to school I had. That has set me off on my current course and reshaped my life. So, though this is probably not the appropriate forum for this, I do want to say, “Thanks, man. You’re very important to me.”

Today’s rain has perpetuated a disturbing memory that sprang up again on my way to my reunion the other night. I haven’t driven much since high school, so the 45 minute drive to Anne’s place in rain at night put me on edge. Because of my infrequent driving experience, I knew that I did not want to drink much at the party before driving back. It was a rare instance of acting as the designated driver.

The risk factor is what brought back an unpleasant memory of a nearly disastrous mistake I made as a younger man living in San Francisco. I’d gotten a bit too inebriated before going out to a club with my girlfriend at the time. Winter rains were falling in blinding sheets…and my girlfriend decided that she wanted me to drive us in her car to the club. Within a block of the apartment, I was turning left from 18th Street onto Guerrero to head downtown. Suddenly she screamed, “Watch out!” I slammed on the brakes and turned my attention away from my worries about oncoming traffic to the front of the car. A young man in the crosswalk was leaping to get out of the way. I’d nearly hit someone.

This obviously had a deep impact. I still feel ashamed when the memory returns. And I cross crosswalks all the time, so you can imagine what pops into my head when a car approaches. Perhaps outing myself as a near killer like this will help me process the event a little further. I know I shouldn’t forget, but I could forget a little more.