• [[Alex Hillman]] calls audience-building 'earning [[trust]] at [[scale]]'.
  • "Who can I reach who has [[money]] to spend?"

• Thursday, 03/30/2023 ** 13:27 Starting to feel like every place I visit has a deadline. I'll never sit in this Allston living room again. 20 Royce Road, Apartment 6 is over. It's time to take Chloe Sevigny's Fucking Awesome poster off the wall, to discard all of the free furniture and ventilation and skateboards and the dented mirror, to the strangely square kitchen and Andy (Andi?)'s old queen-size mattress and to Phoebe next door. I'll miss Arman and all the time that we've spent together over the last five years, introducing me to Blackbird donuts and Pavement coffee and all kinds of wonderful music and opening his heart to everyone he meets. I'm listening to How to Save a Life and Fireflies and I miss you by Blink 182 and I miss Portland, I miss walking home from the fireworks at Oak Hills with Dennis and Devin and Benjamin across that bridge and trying to find the our parked car that smells worse on the inside (Dennis' dad smokes inside), or maybe we took Ben's parents' minivan, the same model that my family drove across the country and back.

I miss the people. I miss driving around the suburbs and shooting the shit at night and the warm-up jogs before track meets in those oversized red running jackets and the smell of those three for a dollar cookies in the lunchroom and walking home to Bethany village but taking a detour first and spending time with all of my friends. I haven't talked to any of them in a long time. David and Paul didn't answer my texts but Aaron will. How could the internet ever replace the time spent with them?

Maintenance has become increasingly interesting to me. I no longer want to 'pop off'; I just want to do the same thing every day and do it well, to spend time with people I love and hold them close for years and years and years. I've spent too much time trying to 'other' myself, to differentiate, to find more niche music and weirder clothes and stranger people and more secretive digital communities and more uncomfortable social circles. It's okay to stay put and do the same thing every day, and that's all I want to do forever. Stay in the same apartment. Have a little long-term plan. Do those same little things every day. Make a big impact. Hope that others remember us all fondly.

I'm tired of being cool, of staying out late and waking up early, of standing in the corner of the club because I know the DJ or artist when I'd rather cook a wonderful meal with them. I'm proud of myself for sitting down and taking out a 700 line task without previous codebase knowledge at work. I love progress. But when will I be able to stand next to my brother on the windowsill of my parents' place on Dawnwood Drive again? ** 14:25 My current excuse for not publishing my writing is my website.

Finish it!