Adam Rosenberg

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed the last few months, it’s that when I admit to myself what i feel is my weakness, I feel stronger. Frankly, I’m less of a dick to be around and a hell of a lot nicer. Just ask Dimmy. He’ll tell you. I guess this is fearless.

It’s midnight. Everyone in my house is asleep and I’m watching reruns of “Family Guy” while organizing music on my mac for a gig next week in DC.

Been doing a lot of thinking lately about where I am now versus where I was six months ago. I’m pretty boring out here. I have some friends, but I don’t go crazy every night like I used to. More content watching “Robot Chicken” with the roommate while cooking food for whomever is within 20 yards of our place.

Getting settled into a friend group in San Francisco and discovering every bar and restaurant in the city has taken a backseat to Adam taking care of Adam. Working out regularly, eating WAY better than I ever did on the east coast - but most importantly, I’ve gained the ability to say “no”.

Make no mistake - I’ve definitely got a core friend group out here and it’s nice having a bunch of friends to consistently hang with, but I guess I’m just more comfortable being alone than I ever used to be. It’s been a constant upward climb in that area since March. I sorta feel like I’ve arrived lately.

It’s no secret that while I’ve wanted to be in California for a while, the catalyst for me finally moving was a relationship I cared very much about, falling apart. Though it wasn’t that breakup that made me move, there was something about that particular broken heart that made me feel strong enough to push the reset button that needed to be pressed years before. I drove out here, processed the ups and downs of the last few years, and arrived in San Francisco as Adam 3.0.

Jokes aside, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where I’m going with all this. Am I going to keep blogging about self reflection and adventures out here? Am I going to shift the whole thing to a DJ-specific blog? Am I going to stop blogging in general? The answer is - I don’t know. I find that I use this blog as a way to just streamline anything and everything on my mind without any regards to what people may think. That’s not how I used to be. Having spent so much of my life terrified of rocking the boat in any situation I didn’t enjoy, simply because I was afraid of the unknown - this is paradise to me.

I guess what I’m rambling about is that I enjoy the quiet now, and have moved past the “make me the center - that’s where I want to be”. I’ve discovered the ability to balance COMFORT in spotlight with CRAVING the spotlight. And I think most important of all (as noticed by my roommate) - I’ve stopped holding grudges. I guess I used to be really angry before.

A friend earlier today asked me how I deal with stressors now - knowing I used to react with neediness, insecurity, and obsession. Now, I deal with it by addressing it and moving on and not internalizing. That’s the key to everything - DON’T INTERNALIZE. If you let worrying turn into an exhaustive emotional issue every time things don’t go your way - you never gain the confidence and security to be ok with yourself.

I promise I am not going to keep this blog as a “self-help” blog, because it isn’t. It’ll be just what it is. My reflections as I move forward out here.

I’m hitting Chicago this weekend, which is a city I have a not-so-secret crush on. Next week I return to DC, going to see all my friends, do a show, get beers at brew pubs in Maryland, and run a 12 mile obstacle course…yeah….

I’m happy, strong, and healthy. Pretty much all I could ask for right now. The motto I’ve been living by below sums it up:

One foot in the past, one in the future - you’re pissin’ on the present.

Enjoying my moments, people!

Greek Theatre for Fleet Foxes (Taken with instagram)

My Chicago trip was AMAZING and can only be summed up with this story:

Back in May when I was blogging while driving across the country and soul-searching, I noticed a comment on my blog from PianosacrossUSA. It was a guy traveling across the country with just his dog and a piano, performing in cities and spreading the love of music.

I always remembered that guy commenting because while Tumblr prevents me from being able to easily search for comments, I remember he said something like “Keep blogging and go forth!” or something supportive. I noticed it because he, like myself, was a musician. He also understood the soul searching and deep spiritual journey I was undertaking driving across the country alone.

Fast forward to my Chicago weekend and I’m walking around Wicker Park when I see a man with a Piano. I go up to him and say “Hey are you the Pianos Across America Guy?” and he says “Adam Rosenberg! Land Before You Fly! I recognize your face!”.  We both smiled and hugged and took a moment to enjoy the power of the Internet. Bringing two random people together through blog posts. I drove 3000+ miles and ended up running into the guy on a random trip to Chicago.

The reasons I ended up in Chicago were random, but the chance meeting of Dotan the Piano Guy and everything that fell into place last weekend (a concert, a place to stay, a random dogsitting adventure, some records) all leads me to put more stock in fate than ever before.

You can’t choose your fate, sometimes things just unfold in mysterious ways. Could mean caring about someone miles away, could mean meeting a piano playing blogger in Chicago, could even mean finding a copy of Harold Melvin’s version of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” on vinyl….

Don’t turn your back on fate….seriously….

Sunset at Chicago’s North Coast Festival (Taken with instagram)

This guy followed my blog months ago and used to comment and I bumped into him playing his piano in Chicago!

I love Mexican Coke (Taken with instagram)

So this past week I booked (arguably) an impulsive trip to Chicago for Labor Day weekend that came about because of two big things:

1. I let the world in front of me unfold, rather than try so hard to please and force the hand.

and

2. The kindness of someone else

I can’t divulge too many details on what #2 means, but I can just say my advice to you is just don’t be mean to people. Especially, when you’re projecting.

Look we all do it. We all get in moods or have bad days or have people that drive us crazy. It’s the ones that lash out I’m finally realizing don’t win and end up masking their own unhappiness in gregariously pointing out the faults of others. I know this because I used to be like that.

Promising the rest of this post isn’t going to be all love-fest, but things are good still in the Bay. I’m babysitting my niece Charlotte on Saturday and making my DJ debut at a happy hour with my music partner, DJ Lil’Elle, in two weeks. I’m rocking it at work and even on days like today where I am in by 7:30 AM and out around 8 PM, my first focus is to take care of Adam rather than be irritable and lose track of my emotions. Came home, went to the gym, made some veggies, getting ready to organize my tunes and make some mixes.

I think the big thing here is that California isn’t necessarily where I always needed to be, but California is where I needed to be right now. Coming off a break up that I can now totally see was inevitable and not necessarily a “fault” - I needed somewhere to collect my thoughts, take care of me, and hear my own internal voice. The road trip did that. Though I DID recently create an east coast version of Stumbling Distance with Bay Area Stumblers to organize Happy Hours with my friends, I have become super UN-planny. The thought of overplanning now makes me nauseated. Stark contrast from the guy that used to need things NOW NOW NOW and would get needy if they didn’t occur.

I’m just really proud of myself right now. I’m not getting distracted or losing site of the goal. That goal isn’t something that ever really ends. It’s a journey. I’ve managed to take care of myself through ups and downs and am giving myself a pat on the back on this one. If you’ve known me for even a YEAR you know I couldn’t possibly have done this before.

If there is one thing though that I wish I could do more it’s get myself to yoga once a week. But it’ll happen. I’ve gotten myself on a consistent gym schedule and no longer am the boy who says “yes” to everything and wears himself down. Just so much more self aware than I was even 6 months ago.

I’m gonna start moving this blog into more of a “here’s the cool thing I ate/saw/played with” phase. Might mean more photos and less words. Y’all can deal with it.

Seeing “The Twelves” tonight. Get the dancin’ shoes ready!

So I named this post “Sorry for the wait” both after the Lil’ Wayne mixtape (which Klout says is a topic I am highly influential about - whatever) and for the actual delay in posting. This week was a key week for me for a lot of reasons.

Work wise, I had been moved around a lot on different accounts and even physical offices which didn’t really allow me the chance to settle and figure out how the place runs. Now that I’m finally on a steady account and have a home office, I was able to really dive in work wise and most importantly I have an actual desk I can hang my hat. Well, not a hat, but a photo that pretty much sums up a majority of the reasons I’m out here.

It’s a photo of myself and 4 of my closest friends (all from California) at one of the friend’s wedding. We were all the groomsmen and the photo was taken in 2008 (I looked like shit but whatever). I met all the guys through the groom, but we all instantly became “old friends for a short time”. For years, they would say “Come out to California…you gotta move here.” and there was always something that prevented me from doing so. It took me years to realize that something was actually just my own fear. Anyway, this photo signifies both what I wanted for a while and what I’ve achieved, so it hangs on my cubicle now. I put it up today and felt really settled.

Professionally this week I also finally found a moment where I hit my groove and felt, well, smart. At a working session/brainstorm where I was the most junior person in the room, I was able to take charge of the conversation and put ideas together and lead. It was a good moment for me, one that made me feel like I had arrived.

Personally this week has had its ups and downs. I’m still happily single but found myself missing parts of my past from months ago to the point where I almost sent an email to an ex. I didn’t, but it was a warning sign to me that I need to still work on myself and the comfort with being alone. Trusting that it’ll all work out. I worked out more this week than I had any other week, that definitely helped. I hadn’t been great about the gym for the past few months (aside from running) but this week went 3 times which kept my mind in a good state. Also got me distracted from anything in my head that in the past had weighed me down. When I don’t work out, I feel like crap, I get needy, its a shitty cycle. When I take care of myself, I feel confident and ok with my biggest fear - being alone.

I’m going to a big festival this weekend in the city with a bunch of bands and tonight I’m going to see some DJs with some friends. Today at work though I received an amazing gift from my friend Greg in Annapolis. The guy is doing my finances and my IRA and this week has been crazy workwise for he and I both. Suddenly yesterday he says he needs my address to overnight something to me. I assume it’s a paper I need to sign for my retirement stuff…I find out today when it arrived that I couldn’t be more wrong.

Greg sent me the recent Maryland Phish shows on CD. It wasn’t that he sent me music. It was that he overnighted that shit to me. The guy knows how much he and I love that band, and he wanted me to have tunes for the weekend to a show at a venue that was special to me (Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD). It’s amazing. I met this guy actually through Carie and while she and I have some common friends after the break up, I’m not nearly as close to anyone like I am to this guy. Just a good reminder that good friends come out of nowhere sometimes and you can’t force life…you just gotta let it flow.

I’ll hopefully post some pics this weekend from the festival, but right now I gots to get my dancin’ shoes on.

Thoroughly obsessed with how awesome this song is. Disco never dies! “I Think I Like It’ by Fake Blood.

I love that my Sundays in San Francisco have consisted of the same two activities:

Laying at the park and making food.

Gonna do the park thing later with some friends. Saw the documentary on A Tribe Called Quest last night and it was AWESOME. Ended up getting motivated to do an impromptu DJ set for my roommate and my friend Stephanie of Tribe and De La Songs. Am LOVING learning to spin and do this DJ thing. Gonna work on my website and some more mixes this week.

Food tonight…me thinks its a grilling kinda night…corn and meat…

Happy Sunday!

Haven’t posted in a while and mentally it shows. I’m tired and running around too much. Definitely need to be better about sleeping and working out. Last two weeks had out of town guests and changes at work so I’m trying to get myself settled again.

One thing I know has been on my mind lately has been relationships. I made a promise to myself that I was going to spend extended time alone, not in a relationship. I have never been good at this so having been relationship-less for more than three months now has been pretty good for me. Though I find myself being social, the whole quest for my “one” hasn’t been a priority to me.

I guess that’s progress but I definitely miss being in a relationship. I know though what happens when I get caught up in that stuff: I start focussing too intensely on my significant other and forget about what makes me tick. I’m currently not in tune enough with what drives Adam to make a good boyfriend. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a hopeless romantic - I just also have noticed I’ve hardened quite a lot from the past few months. I don’t crave the attention like I used to.

I think this is all stuff I was supposed to learn way earlier in life but didn’t until now. Not really important. I don’t feel so pressured out here to be half of a couple the way I did in DC, yet I miss being in a relationship - that stability. Yeah confusing I know. Probably due to lack of sleep and staying up late practicing DJing - which is AWESOME by the way.

I think my biggest takeaway from the past few years and my current alone time is that I really can’t be with someone unless I’m 100% reliant on myself. I’m at like 98% - still room for improvement. I have learned something from every relationship I’ve been in - some things not til much later after they’ve ended. It manifests itself in different ways: how I learned to be a romantic from one, how I learned to be more open from another, how I learned to appreciate new activities and hip-hop from another…I sometimes wonder if I teach as much as I learn.

Though lately I stop and think “Who cares?”

I think I’ve learned to be fearless. There’s not a single person that knows me that was surprised I moved here. This was a metaphor for everything I wanted but lacked the confidence to seize. It wasn’t California, it was me acting on my own. I think this itself is why I’m so happy out here. I accept myself without the pressure to impress anyone. Honestly, every day is some level of fun. I think allowing myself to have no regrets is what makes me smile. I accepted the good and bad I’ve gone through as just parts of the road. I also firmly believe in karma. I broke someone’s heart in my past so I had mine broken. It all happens for a reason and it’s why I don’t harbor pain anymore. It comes back to you if you aren’t careful. Karma and I are square right now. I’m good with that.

Taking a moment to ground myself and get my engines to neutral again is key. I couldn’t do this before. My heart wasn’t able to balance what I needed to let go and what I internalized. Now I just let it roll (unless I’m tired or hungry which is when I slip up) and try to follow an idea my friend LJ said:

Hearts that are truly strong are too strong to be broken.

Weak post? Maybe. But I’m gonna better at posting at least once a week. I notice when I don’t write, I don’t sleep well. Maybe my brain is overloaded.

Anyways….California soul….

I laughed when I found out your last name was Shaw and your first name was Rick.

You always found a way to be assertive and level-headed despite having to routinely deal with the stubbornness that is the idiotic decisions I have made in my life.

I found out you died this morning when my mom told me and I immediately thought of how you were the only one who understood in April why I was leaving. You were my biggest supporter of finding myself and driving to California. You cheered me on (sometimes with too many capital letters in Facebook wall posts).

You were one of the last people I saw on the east coast before I left and while I believe both the good and bad in life happen for a reason, I’m angry that you’re gone. I don’t think it’s fair. This is the first time I’ve felt like I’ve lost someone since Mitzi died nearly 14 years ago.

You are always going to be my family, Rick. I’ll miss you so much. I know there is a reason you were taken from us, I just can’t understand what it is. I’m willing to give the world the benefit of the doubt until that becomes clear. Until then, I’ll grieve and I’ll miss you. Thank you for being brother, uncle, and father to me. But most importantly - thank you for being my friend.

PS - you had no idea how to use Facebook. Seriously, you typed in ALL CAPS and constantly invited me to Mafia Wars and auto posted on my wall.

My roommate and I couldn’t stop laughing when we noticed the title of the cover story in my new issue of the Humane Society’s monthly magazine. Check out the lower right corner.

Just favorited ” oki-ni presents FADETOMIND by Kingdom” by oki-ni on Mixcloud.com

I’ve pretty much used every Sunday here to spend the day in the numerous parks in the city. It’s been awesome. Today was no exception as I hung out with some friends (some I know through work, some I randomly met at events, some through Twitter) at Washington Square Park for the entire day. Who knew doing nothing could be so exhausting? Yeah, I know I lead a rough life.

Work has been getting better and better. Really have a great team on the account I’m on. Socially, I’m hitting my groove though I’m still watching out for myself when I lose sight of “taking care of me” time. This is something I’ve always been prone to do; Get caught up in the fun, and then forget about me. It’s been really important that I do that. If I don’t, I’ll just fall back into old habits.

Been thinking a lot lately about the move to San Francisco being more about a metaphor for my life to this point, not actually the move being what changed me. It was the fact that I grabbed something that was masking in uncertainty and only seemed doable in my dreams. It’s kinda made me fearless to a point. I mean my last two months in DC were absolute rock bottom for where I’ve ever been emotionally in life. I didn’t like my job, my relationship fell apart, I had moved away from my friends. Just overall emotionally draining. I’m so used to waiting for a moment to change itself, this time I just created one.

DJing has been going well but man is it tough. Toughest stuff is organizing and keeping up on all the music. I love the challenge and love how I’ve been able to expand my listening. Really lucky to have such a welcoming teacher as well. Have found that a lot of other DJs are just really nice and inviting to newbies, back east it seemed like folks weren’t as helpful to someone new. More of a “deal with your own shit, why you on our turf” kinda thing because it’s such a competitive field. But it’s been a fun music challenge so far and hoping to keep practicing and finish my setup soon so I can make booties shake.

Speaking of bootie shaking, I went to see George Clinton not once but TWICE in one night on Friday. My friend Brittan and I went to the early show, got drinks, then came back for the end of the late show. Well, we snuck in. Badass like that. It was fantastic, especially for my first San Francisco concert experience.

I know I haven’t posted a lot lately - take that as a sign that I’m just getting out and doing a lot. Have had some ups and downs the last few weeks, mostly from previously closed wounds that were reopened, but I’m good. Lifes not worth the grudges or putting yourself in situations where you know people are just going to make you upset or bother you. Easier to just cut those things out, accept people and things for who or what they are, and just focus forward.

There’s a thing I’ve learned in running about how you keep your head up and looking forward, not down. It helps you breath and build stamina. Same applies to life.

Stay tuned for more DJ stuff. Likely going to pimp out my Mixcloud page more.

My first (and second) attempts at the Pacific Ocean. Thanks to Elysha for filming.

Showed this to Kate along with a Goonies quote and she said “OMFG are you in Astoria?”

Nah - Ocean Beach. God I fucking love California!

Amazing microbrews at Park Chalet!