Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
This blog will track the plight of an urban warrior who has moved back into the woods. I was raised by two loving hippy parents, living in a cabin they built on a wooded island in Puget Sound. My bedroom in highschool was, in fact, a school bus. But, the pendulum swings, and as soon as I was done with highschool, I headed for the city.
Boston, Seattle, San Francisco…I spent 7 years scuttling under freeways, dancing on sidewalks, breathing concrete and loving it. I went to college, I went to raves, I danced my ass off, I was a hipster, I was a scenester, I used my charge card. It was all very exciting, and very stimulating. When I started writing for magazines (while living in San Francisco in ‘96), I felt that the citychaos was my fuel, it was the soul gatorade that kept my writing muscles strong and bulging under my laptop.
And, for years, it was. It was fun, screaming down alleyways, finding hidden bastions of lightlife, working for large corporations, feeling the grease around me as I enjoyed my life as a citycog. I liked it. Nay, I LOVED it.
Then it started bothering me. Couldn’t I walk down the street without being harassed by others’ eyes? Does everyone ALWAYS have to make all that noise? Why should I have to breath what came out of the asses of commuter’s cars on the six lane double decker offramp outside the window of my rotting warehouse loftspace? My boyfriend conveniently decided it was time to go back to school, at The Evergreen State College in the woods of Olympia, WA.
I work for Lotus Magazine, electronic music magazine published in Los Angeles. I also write product reviews for Amazon.com. Other than that, there’s not much work for a web writer and editor down here…I tried to apply for a job at some crappy place, and called to ask what address I should email my online resume to. The secretary clucked “I wouldn’t email it–that’s so unprofessional!” Dear Lord, these people are living in a different millennium. sigh.
So, this blog will be a way to track the movements of what happens with a girl raised in the woods, who ran to the city, runs back to the woods. Hippy / raver / clubber / professional / hippy again.
Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, is in bookstores now.
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Electrolicious» Blog Archive » Seven years of blogging
November 6th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
[…] I missed the seven year anniversary of my first blog post. In the seven years since I started blogging I […]
dori
November 7th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
yeah, sadly i’ve lost pretty much everything - ten years (they didn’t even call it “blogging” yet and i think i handcoded every single page… jeez…) you couldn’t get me to code anything anymore.