Fixpert

2006 has been a whirlwind for me. The themes this year have been challenge and change. There have been moments of great joy, and moments overwhelming sadness. But I’m happy to say that apathy and stagnation did not rear their ugly heads, and I think that alone is a bit of an accomplishment.

In fact, now that I’m thinking back to one year ago, it’s hard to believe that this much experience and living has been crammed into just 12 short months.

• Fixpert Inc’d then Un-Inc’d - Put this one in the emotional roller coaster category. I got Fixpert Inc’d at the very beginning of the year and worked for myself for a few months. It went really well, client work poured in immediately. There were some things I really like about working for myself, like being able to go outside and go for a run in the middle of the day. But, I really missed the social aspect of working with other people. When a great job opportunity came along, I took Fixpert Inc apart. I think it was the right thing to do, but it was a really difficult decision and a sad time.
• Hit by a car - Those that know me know that way-back-when I spent a couple years as a bike messenger, including some time in the saddle in NYC. Amazingly, I managed to emerge relatively unscathed. Well, 6 weeks after moving to LA I was hit by a motorist while riding my bike simply because he failed to use his turn signal properly (please signal before you turn). Luckily, I wasn’t too badly hurt, but I’m still receiving physical therapy for my shoulder, my bruised/cracked rib seems all healed up. This event really shook me and opened my eyes to the seriousness and danger of my choice to be a bike commuter. Unfortunately I also had some friends that were struck by cars while riding bikes in LA this year, resulting in some very serious injuries: punctured lungs, burst kidney and liver, broken jaws, broken orbital bones and noses, on and on. Please respect cyclists! Slow down, be patient, give them room, and for god’s sake use your turn signal! It could save someone’s life. Please! Human beings are soft squishy things that break easily when struck by 2+ ton behemoths.
• Single again - I don’t want to get into this one too much, but my boyfriend and I parted ways last Winter after 3 years together. We’re still friends and keep in touch, but this was a really hard thing to go through.
• Moved from Virginia to California - There’s so much I could say about this one. A source of many ups and downs, many challenges. Overall, career-wise I think it was a good decision, although I am still wrestling with being 3,000 miles away from my friends and family whom I love dearly. Christmas was my first time home in 8 months, and it was a bittersweet occassion.
• Leaving my dog Pizza behind - Because of the move, Pizza had to stay behind in Virginia, and my ex-boyfriend got custody of him. This was totally and completely heart-breaking for me, but resulted in a better life for Pizza, so I think it was the right thing to do. The thing about leaving your dog behind is you can’t chat with them on the phone, and you can’t explain why you had to go, it’s just utterly heart-breaking. I still miss Pizza all the time.
• Daily sketchbook journal - This year I began a new ritual of drawing in a sketchbook every night as a way to document my day — a concept stolen from Chris Ware. This has been a great addition to my life, and as a visual person, a great way to document what I’m going through. I hope this is a habit that sticks with me for the rest of my life, and I totally recommend it to any of you doodlers out there.
• Loneliness - Having moved so far away from home has resulted in a lot of loneliness for me. Unfortunately, if you are lonely and admit that you are lonely, you run the risk of sounding pathetic, but I think being lonely is very human and natural for us as social creatures. Doing my nightly sketchbook journal has helped me to see that this is a theme that consistently pops up in my drawings, something I might not have noticed otherwise.
• Lots of time for hobbies - The up side of loneliness is that I have had a lot of time to pour into my side interests and hobbies. The key is not losing focus or momentum, and just having fun! I’ve learned to write down goals for myself, even for the fun stuff I do so I don’t forget why the hell I started certain projects in the first place.
• Learning Spanish - Los Angeles is a great opportunity to be exposed to a variety of cultures, and it’s a great place to learn and practice Spanish. So, I’ve been brushing off my high-school level Spanish skills and studying that language once again. It’s a lot of fun and I have a practical opportunity to use it every day.
• Learning Japanese - My brother is fluent in Japanese and resides in Tokyo with his wife (who is Japanese). This year I started studying Japanese (spoken and written) with the hopes of being able to speak a bit in future visits to Japan.
• Riding the velodrome - This year marked my first ever ride on a Velodrome, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time! This was a high point for me. I’m lucky enough to have the ADT Event Center velodrome in Carson, CA just 20 miles south from here. It’s indoor, wooden, with 45 degree banked turns — the only velodrome of it’s kind in North America.
• Music! - I have reunited with an old love of mine — music! I’m playing guitar regularly again. I won a Fender Stratocaster from my previous job at Crutchfield, and it’s amazing what a quality guitar can do for your skills and enjoyment as a guitarist. I also bought a practice drum set that I’m able to play silently in my apartment. I’ve been recording little musical doodles on GarageBand and hope to polish them up for public consumption soon — you’ve been warned.
• My hair got really long - Ok, haha, this one is dumb, but my hair hasn’t been this long since I was 6, and as a tomboy it’s nice to have an undeniably feminine charactaristic like long hair. And the dudes seem to dig it, totally understandable since I’m not into dudes with lady-hair.
• Travel - I got to visit some sweet places this past year: Hawaii (first time there), Florida, Austin, NoCal, San Diego and Coronado, and just generally exploring the vast city of Los Angeles.
• Web Generalist to Interaction Designer - Along with many other changes, this year marked a huge career shift for me. I started the year as a Senior Web Designer (generalist), then I was self-employed, then I was an Information Architect, and now I hold the title of Interaction Designer. Without all the other stuff in my life going on, this big career change could have been enough to keep me busy and challenged this year. I’m really happy with the move towards Interaction Design, and I think this move is helping me to develop myself as a “T-shaped” person, as described by the folks from Ideo. This means I have a breadth of experience and skills, with depth of knowledge in one key area — Interaction Design. But, it’s been a big change, and a big challenge redefining myself in the workplace.

What’s to Come in 2007?

Short answer? Who knows! It’s an exciting time for me. In March, I’ll be speaking on a SXSW panel called Uniting the Holy Trinity of Web Design with Dustin Diaz, Jonathan Snook, and Cameron Adams. Aside from that, who knows what this year will bring. Hopefully lots of fun and friendship, lots of safe and healthy bike riding, and more career development. Less talk, more rock!

I’d been toiling, trying to think of what I wanted to write about on Fixpert for a few weeks now. I can feel one of those “what am I doing with this site??” posts coming on. But in the meantime, Nate’s comment on my last post got me thinking about my somewhat recent shift in attitude — or at least demeanor — towards drivers.

First Things First, I Drive

In the spirit of full-disclosure, I own and occassionally drive a car, a diminutive VW Golf that I bought off my brother when he moved to Japan. I ride my bike to work every day, but I’m using my car to get around LA a bit on the weekends — all the while, hating myself as I do it.

Anyway, you know how it goes…when you’re a driver you bitch about pedestrians, when you’re a pedestrian you bitch about drivers, etc. Each form of transportation puts you into a certain mindset or mode which for some reason prevents you from being simpathetic towards all other modes — one exception perhaps being the driving cyclist, who I think is probably the most alert and safe driver on the road — but maybe I’m dillusional?

I think it’s an unfortunate aspect of human nature to hate “the other” and to do the “us vs. them” thing, with “us” and “them” being rather arbitrary from moment to moment. Just think of how friggin’ patriotic everybody got when the whole country hated Al Qaeda altogether. Then we saw something shiny and got distracted and started hating each other again. Anyway…

I Didn’t Used To Be This Peaceful

Let’s start at the beginning. Five years ago, I started work as a bike messenger. I was in NYC. I am not usually an angry person, but I had about 4 years of steam to blow off from an unhealthy relationship that I had just gotten out of. At this moment in my life, I was angry, I just didn’t know it yet. It was somewhat buried and I needed to pedal down 5th Ave in Midtown during rush hour to find this anger and wring it from my pysche.

Messengering is a great way to get pissed off, but it immediately offers a really healthy way to get rid of that anger. In busy cities, you kind of get paid to be pissed. The more deliveries you make, the more money you earn. So if some jerk swerves and almost kills you in traffic, the rush of adrenaline might help you catch up to him at the red light and knock off his side-view mirror with your u-lock, and/or that energy can also be used to accelerate through the congestion at inhuman speeds. Your package arrives sooner, now you’re in Chelsea empty (holding no packages), your dispatcher is pleased and starts flowing you more jobs. Suddenly you’re making more money! Rinse and repeat. All day, every day.

Messengering was just about the best thing that could have happened to me at this time. I found it extremely cathartic. But after the therapeutic part drew to a close and I was just having fun messengering, I found that the anger could be a downward spiral for me.

The Confrontations with Drivers

I’ve had my share of shouting matches with drivers. I’ve spit many-a-loogie, flipped many-a-bird. I’ve hit cars with u-locks, I’ve knocked on drivers-side windows while riding alongside someone to flip them off right in their face. I’ve punished drivers by blocking their cars in traffic (which is totally stupid and you should never do, people get hit this way).

I’ve also had my share of abuse. I’ve had many-a-burning-cigarette flicked at me, bottles thrown, or my favorite — a slice of pizza. I’ve been swerved at, shouted at, spit on. I’ve even been physically picked up sort of by the lapels by a driver that stepped out of his car (after trying to swerve and hit me) who clearly was contemplating punching me in the face before I drew back my u-lock in defense, making him flinch and I was able to make my speedy getaway.

Violence Begets More Violence

All of these encounters still get me upset just thinking about them. Years later! And none of these confrontations produced anything of any value, and I was often the instigator! I would never do evil things out of the blue, it was always a reaction to a driver doing something evil or stupid to me. But it was almost always my choice to escalate situations, thinking that I would get some relief or justice.

I’m sure that every driver that I shouted at or spit on carried that anger with them in future situations when they encountered cyclists on the road (ever heard drivers joke about “how many points” they’ll get for hitting a cyclist?). Thinking about it now, my anger and impulsiveness was pretty selfish and helped to spread hatred towards cyclists in general. This is why I now have mixed emotions about big group rides which can sometimes get pugnacious — more about that in another post.

Now I’m All Zen-Like

There was no distinct turning point in my behavior that I can remember. I mean even now, I have an occassional bout of bad behavior. But usually these days, when I see someone do something stupid when they’re driving, my reaction is muttering “asshole” under my breath. Haha, and in LA if you could put a mic on me as I ride, it’s sometimes a constant flow of “asshole…asshole…” But I don’t even flash an evil look at the drivers.

My goal these days is not to be combative with drivers. My goal is to be a compelling image of fun for drivers to see and long for. When drivers see me riding, I want them to say “That looks like fun! I should get a bike!” The more cyclists on the road, the better. My ultimate vision of utopia is this: no cars, nothing but bikes and pedestrians. A pipe-dream perhaps, but I know that spitting on windshields won’t get me any closer to that vision.

Yes, drivers still constantly do stupid and dangerous stuff, but I feel much less angry now that I don’t participate in all of the spitting, yelling, etc that I used to do. As a result I’m safer when I ride, and I think I’m getting more enjoyment from the riding itself. It’s a different kind of enjoyment, more like a healthy and sustainable long-term romance, rather than a tumultuous lusty affair. They both have their place, but I haven’t been hit by a lit cigarette in a long time.