I've been thinking about death a lot since we got to Philadelphia. This move has brought out all kinds of surprising ideas and feelings, many of which I can't articulate. My mortality is the one that is, strangely, the easiest to talk about. I've been keeping it to myself because I have a feeling Drew has enough on his mind and adding "we're all gong to die" to his list of concerns probably isn't going to help matters.

I guess this particular preoccupation is to be expected since I'm making such a huge life change. I'm thirty years old and I'm making a commitment to a career that will define the rest of my working life. It's only natural, I suppose, that I've got death on the brain.

It's not that I can necessarily describe to you specific thoughts I'm having on that subject. Everywhere I look I see the impermanence of things. I look at people on the streets and wonder if they're feeling the passage of time the same way I am.

This move is so different than the other three major moves in my life (to college in New York City, to Los Angeles after college, to Montreal to work on a film). Those moves, while scaring the shit out of me, felt like thrilling, adventurous expansions. They were chances to throw myself into new environments and see which parts of me tagged along and which were left behind. Was I such a cynical bastard in Missouri because I couldn't be out of the closet there? Was I depressed before Montreal because I hated my job?

But the move to Philadelphia has been a different kind of event. There's still a thrilling sense of adventure, but now I feel like my sense of self hasn't changed much. I'm the same person I was in Los Angeles. I'm not trying to change who I am. I'm happy. And this move has also come at a much higher price. I've left more friends behind this time and I've left a city in which I could see myself living happily for the rest of my life.

Now suddenly the landscape is different. Everything I depended on as touchstones (friends, Drew's family, my running routes, my grocery store) are gone and yet I feel no different. I walk the streets and everyone is acting out their normal routines. I have none. I've slipped into a parallel world that's neither a vacation nor (yet) a home.

I guess the uprooting has triggered some deep questions about my individuality and my place in the universe. They're not ideas I can share, really, just odd feelings of displacement. I'm happy, though. I guess maybe that's not coming through here. I love walking around the city, looking at all the (very white) people in my neighborhood and thinking about how they're all going to die one day.