The End

The end...of BLOGGING?

No, not quite - but today does mark the end of my official internship and thus the end of my Raleightivity. It's been a really good 9 months or so - but I have no clue what I'm going to be up to after the summer is over. Stay tuned for a new blog once I settle things out with my life. In the mean time, I suggest you grab a Twitter account and search for Nathan_Sloan. It's kind of like following my blog, only usually much less interesting. I'm sure I'll post here or there on this blog before I officially retire it but I just wanted to give you all (all 2 of you) a heads up. Thanks for reading!

Pollen - nated

There are few things as beautiful and absolutely reassuring as a day like today.

Amidst constant talk of poor economic climate, it's ironic how something related to our physical climate can make people forget their heavy woes - money, family, jobs, etc. For one beautiful sunny day, the only thing you really care about is going for a walk or taking a ride with the top down.

My friend Matt is a cool guy. I'm really thankful to have friends in my life like him - and I'm blessed with friends from every season of my life. Matt is one of my last remaining friends from the high school season and we're still just as comfortable hanging out as we were nearly 8 years ago when we first met. In a time when everything in my life seems uncertain and insecure, it's nice to go back to Benson and wander into Matt mad laboratory of a basement and talk about nerdy movies and stuff that only we think is cool.

I left Matt's house around 11 PM and started the 15 minute drive back to Four Oaks under a clear, star-studded spring sky. Music blasting and crisp air swirling past my face from an open sunroof, I replayed memories of the similar trips I've made so many times before. A younger man with no less of a plan. Sometimes life in this crazy and imperfect world is truly beautiful.

Show me the ....

Actual Picture of Death Cab playing in Davidson, NC on my birthday - 2009.

"Amazing still it seems
I'll be 23
I won't always love what I'll never have
I won't always live in my regrets"
Jimmy Eat World

I. Can't. Believe it. This just doesn't seem real that right now I'm 23 years old. I know that sounds dumb to everyone else but this is my blog and I hereby give myself permission to sound dumb on it. Truthfully, though - I'm getting older and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Funny thing is, by the time I figure it out, I'll probably be 25 and struggling to come to terms with that.

I'm not sad to be getting old. Just sad to say good by to the people and places of my late teens and early 20's. I know that in reality, they've been gone for a while now, but these anniversaries and their numbers force us to come to terms with such.

And not only the past, but the future as well. So many of the people I look up to and admire the most were already flying by the time they were my age. Here I stand with paper wings taped to my arms and a confused expression on my face. I have a long way to go before I bloom into whatever God has made me to be - or at least it feels like it.

No girl. No job. No house. No Roots. No idea.
NO IDEA.

...of where to go from hear.

But thats ok. Good, even.

Yesterday, my old roommates Jeff and Bryan and Caswell friend, JaySun, joined me for a Death Cab for Cutie show in Davidson, NC at Davidson College. The college is Beautiful - if I had been wealthy enough, smart enough, and perceptive enough, I would have gone there for the landscaping and architecture alone. We made our way to Belk Arena and then found four of the most AWESOME seats totally vacated right in the middle. We took them and the rest is history.

I usually write a lengthy review of shows that I go to, especially one's like DCfC, but this time I'm going to save it. I was able to bootleg (shhh!) the whole show, so I hope I'll always have a digital record of what it was like (complete with dumb conversation in-between songs with my friends). The last time I saw DCfC was at about the same time in 2006 - so I can say that they've come a long way and now have so much material that their full set and encore is over an hour and thirty minutes long!

What a birthday. Thanks to everyone who made it as fun as special as it was.

For now. I have some work to do on those wings of mine...

Sure-Fired

I thought it would be fun to start April off with a brilliant craigslist find that Joe ran across today. Here is the listing as it appears in full:

Iphone 3g 8gig - $200 (Durham)
I'm selling my Iphone cuz it was left in the shower didn't get wet but the steam got in the screen.
And it looks foggy only asking 200 no charger no data cable The phone is in good shape.\

I'm going to forgive a few things here right off the bat - namely the poor spelling, sentence fragment, and the fact that "I" is capitalized in iPhone. Beyond that let us consider what he is offering.
It's an iPhone with a moderately to severely water damaged screen, no charger, and no USB cable. Assuming you would like to buy one that did happen to function correctly, (for instance, a brand new one) you would pay just $199. That's right - with a service contract, AT&T will actually sell you an iPhone for less than Mr. Shady's water-damaged special. I suppose we shouldn't really worry about the damaged screen, though. After all, it's not like the screen is a part of the phone or anything, (?) and according to his listing the phone portion of the phone is in great working order (though you may have some trouble confirming this if the battery is dead because there is no way to charge it).

Ah, America!

Hardly Breathing

I'm going to start a video production company that does quality commercial work at an affordable price, but only on the weekends. I'll call it "Nearly Professional Videography."

I'm going to move to New York and break into the publishing industry from the ground up. Some day I'll work in a high-rise building and live in a townhouse overlooking some trendy urban park.

I'm going to be a missionary to New Zealand and spend a year there sharing Jesus with a country that would largely rather forget about him. When I'm done, I might decide to settle in there for a good long while.

I'm going to study law and work at a local (to my home) practice for the next 15-30 years.

I'm going to apply for Teach For America and start a long career in education by jumping into the grittiest urban education systems in the U.S.

I'm going to run for state congress while I'm still in my 20's and with my victory, seek a long career of public service.

I'm going to move to D.C. and - do whatever I can do in D.C.

I'm going back to school.

I'm going to become a college professor and wear tweed suits and bow ties.

I'm going to write the next great American novel and market it myself.

I'm going to eat more Indian food.

I'm going to become an amateur photographer.

I'm going to become a craig's list hawk.

I'm going to learn to write music that people other than myself can enjoy listening to.

I'm going to make wise investments and use my money to help people.

I'm going to find my true love.

---

I'm going to look back on this and think, "So that's what I was going to do..."

I Am Art Official

Earlier today I had the great pleasure (slight exaggeration) of eating at "I heart NY" pizza on hillsborough street. While standing in line I wondered why some businesses and rooms are welcome to be qualified as "parlors" and others arent. Your house can have a parlor, and if you serve pizza you are certainly welcome to call your establishment a pizza parlor. The same is true for ice cream, you are welcome to make it a shop or a parlor at your discretion. I've even seen smoking parlors in cigar and pipe shops where all the old men go to talk about the boat the just bought (that they actually can't afford) and laugh at silly Democrats. Troubled, I returned and quickly took to the dictionary for some answers; here is what I found:
PARLOR(n)
1.-DATED a sitting room in a private house.
-A room in a public building for receiving guests (mayor's parlor)
-A room in a monastery or convent that is set aside for conversation.
2.-A shop or business providing specified goods or services.
and lets not forget
3.-(also milking parlor) A room or building equipped for milking cows.

So under the guidelines set out by definition 2, any shop or business that provides a specified good or service may then call that shop a parlor so long as it is accompanied, first, by an adjective describing said goods or services.

Thats right America, the floodgates are open for this great nation to be covered in hamburger parlors, Lamaze parlors, and the ever-exciting insurance parlor. As for me, I plan to opening a didjereedoo parlor next week. Stop on by and kick it Aborijinal style with me.

I always think of bread when someone wears loafers.

Scotch Tape and Cigar Butts

New York City is - in a word - amazing. I spent the past week there for CCF NC State spring break as we went out each day serving the people of the city in a variety of different ways. I couldn't possibly cover everything that I've thought about and experienced in the past week - but I can talk about one of them that is pretty simple.

Freedom from the internet. I went almost a week with no email, facebook, nothing. Funny thing is, I kind of liked it. I would encourage anyone who reads this to take a few days off and see what I'm talking about because it's pretty refreshing.

Also refreshing - Malta. A Latin-American soft drink that I discovered thanks to Jon when we ate at "Munch Time USA" in The Bronx. Tastes like liquid horehound candy.

Do Solmnly Care

Ok - I'm really creeped out by facebook ads. If you'll remember a couple of posts back I talked about needing to upgrade my wardrobe to be more adult and professional. Today I got on facebook and in the sidebar is one of their targeted ads which reads: "Bored of Trendy Jeans? Maybe it's time to upgrade to better fitting men's trousers."

AHHHHH!
They are watching us. Sound the alarms! The British are coming!

Blind-sided by a Yeti

So I've recently become mildly obsessed with becoming a proficient songwriter. This is especially unnerving if you've ever heard me play a guitar. I started almost exactly two years ago and, though I've come a long way, it is painfully obvious that I have a long way still to go. In spite of this, I grow weary of rehashing tired, old exercises and playing my own versions of songs that Death Cab wrote nearly 10 years ago. It is time to take my first steps into a larger, and slightly more intoxicating world. To help me on this journey I have been reading interviews, listening to songwriters, and buying up literature on the song writing method as if it would go out of style in the absence of my patronage. One such volume is "The Frustrated Songwriters Handbook" by Karl Coryat and Nicholas Dobson. It's an interesting read and I consider several of their "radical" methods to be incredibly useful in digging raw material out of the darkest, most misunderstood depths of your soul. Of course, there is a ton of polish that must be added to make that material into listen-able media, but it looks like Dobson stumbled into a cool way of overcoming creative block.

In one section of the book he offers up a mini-exercise to get in the proper mindset for holding a composition session. It is called "The 3-minute Burn," and, as the name implies, you do something for three minutes and burn it afterwards. In this case, you set a timer and give yourself three minutes to fill as much of a page as possible with stream-of-consciousness writing. After the three minutes, you glance over the page, copy any tidbits you like to a new page, and burn the original. No one will ever know that you wrote it. This is incredibly therapeutic and has helped me overcome my perfectionist nature. Wanting everything I write to be brilliant has meant that I haven't done much writing lately.

I encourage anyone (even those of you that don't think you're creative) to try the 3-minute burn - partly because you'll discover that anyone can accidentally strike gold and partly because it's fun to watch paper burn. To close out this post I've published a few of the "tidbits" that I took from my first three 3-minute burns below.

One that got away wasn't worth it anyway
Sunny sides and almond eyes aren't anything until they die
Solemn or not, here you come
Harmony hates to tell its own story and who am I to say it should?

There were a few others. Given, nothing here is brilliant, but considering they came without concious thought behind them and in about nine minutes - it excites me.

Goody's Powder is just plain fast.

The Collegiate

There was a time when looking like a college kid was the most admirable thing in the world. I think it was around 10th grade. I'm finally realizing that such a time has passed for me. As my friend JaySun recently pointed out on his blog, we hung out a week or so ago and had a discussion on the pressures to "dress your age" and to "look your age" in general. It wasn't until this year that I finally felt the adult world begin to scratch its nasty claws against my skin in a beckoning motion.
"Come on Nathan," it says with raspy voice, "It's time to grow up - you know all the cool kid...err...adults are doing it!"
I am succumbing, mentally, to the need for an updated wardrobe and a more authentic, clean-cut look. Soon it will be time to say goodbye to my beloved band t-shirts. The graphic T's that I proudly purchased as a college sophomore no longer have a place upon my marginally harrier chest. Wearing trendy Converses and jeans with ragged cuffs is endearing to 17 year-olds, but there is a better way to go now.

The problem is that I can't afford that way yet. I want a new suit - that's WAY out of my price range. When I walk into stores like Banana Republic my head nearly explodes - but alas, the sale items are never in my size. To be able to flip the pages of J. Crew and deck myself out in 3 or 4 new outfits that say, "Hey, I'm a 20-something casual," would make me gleefully happy - but it's just not in the cards right now. So what's a boy-err, man-err, man-thing-ish, to do?

I suppose I could take care of the hair issue. Longer hair does have a tendency to make you look like a high school senior - principally one who is far too into Magic:The Gathering and will endlessly assert the immortality of certain moments in Led Zepplin's 1977 tour. The simple step of lowering the old ears and adopting a 1960s fatherly 'do will make me look a lot more mature. I can also endeavor to shave more often than once a week. Maybe even every day! All of this adds up to a guy who looks more like a real-world professional than a class-skipping buffoon. Of course, with all of this said, I'm wouldn't be ready to toss out the hoodies and T's even if I did have the cash. There will always be a dark spot in my closet, (and my heart) where the awkward college boy will be given his time.

Gingerbread houses are a rip-off in real estate investment.

Nothing to Say for Myself

These days are spent in rigid adherence to my calendar and daily planners. The new semester has begun and thus the last 5 months before I am, once again, jobless. 2009 has a nice ring to it already. Sure, it stinks in a lot of ways to not know where I'll be or what I'll be doing by the time the clock strikes midnight for the first time in 2010, but in a lot of other ways it's liberating. I'm not pinned down. I'm still in that in-between phase. A floater. A literal world of choices in front of me. I hope I don't read this in 20 years with remorse for having chosen the wrong path but, then again, if God stays a firm fixture in my life I can't imagine Him not making the most of whatever situation I find myself in.

It would seem that 2009 could be the "big" year.