tumbleweed of memories / an anarchy of words!

so, i blew through dc rather quickly. i spent one night there and the morning, i had thought of staying longer but the situation didnt present itself. as i often do in a large city, in the morning i will go to a hotel and use the toilet their and wireless. i have catalogued a number of them that frequently offer free wireless. generally it is an easy place to spend some time, people are generally oblivious to my presence and i dont have to spend any money. and, oftentimes, i can find some kind of food source as well.

no so this morning. i awoke and went deeper into the city, towards a marked visitor information center on the map. my plan was to find a free museum or something of the sort and spend the day walking around the capital, but the marked information center wasnt there. so i saw this hotel chain, marriott, and entered. i walked in and proceeded up the stairs towards the mezzanine level and halfway up someone asked me from behind if they could help me.

i told this security guard that i did not require any help, and he asked if i was a guest. i said no but that i was going to visit someone who was a guest in the hotel. he said "it doesnt work that way," asked my friends name and room number and for a photo id. clearly i had made up a name and room number, and i wasnt going to give him my identification. so i walked out. he followed me out, but not much further.

i was a little bit scared from the encounter because the entire city of dc is recorded from little cameras at the end of every block. i didnt know if this person would phone me in as a suspicious person or something. so i did a wide loop back to my truck, on the way i passed a library and went in there instead. there i was able to use the internet and toilet. i spent a little bit of time there and as i walked back to my truck i decided that i didnt want to spend more time here.

my reason, and the reason i am extrapolating on this, is because i have been to dc a number of times in my life and had little interest in "seeing the sites" again. since then i have recognized that i missed an opportunity to write about my past - me as a young boy. and that is a large part of this trip, trying to remember things that i have experienced or been a part of and writing those memories down for the sake of posterity.

and because i am unsure when - or if - i will recall these things again. i have probably written about it before, but i dont really have any clear memories of my childhood or tween years. for some reason i have blocked much of that out or i just have a poorer memory than most people. as i like to say - i have a bad timeline.

also, to be tangential again, and sway from the point at hand, i want to recall my last day in baltimore also. the night that we all got together and played "salad bowl" (i have written about these things) was the first time any people have slept in mikes new house. it was a sort of "christening" for the place and i was happy to be a part of that. one day, years from now, i can visit again and say that i slept in this house the first night. it would be like day one of the world if we were thinking of that house as if it were the life of christ or something.

anyway. in the morning i got up before everyone again and went out for a walk. this time i went to the burger king down the street because they boasted free wireless internet. i sat outside there for a bit using said internet and when i felt that i had gotten my fill of it i walked back tot he house. folks still werent up (it was only like 9am or something) so i sat on the shiny side of the road reading my book until signs of life came from the house.

then we had a yogurt/fresh fruit breakfast and dawdled around while everyone properly awoke for the day and we were ready to go explore. the five of us -mike, eliza, elaria (formerly known as ila), valentina, and me - went down through little italy towards the docks to visit a cafe. we had some coffee and croissants and then walked along the piers towards mikes brothers boat, which he lives on.

mike, who has spent all of his life in baltimore (aside from traveling) fed us some history of the places we were in. his brother wasnt home so we went back to his truck and continued the tour of baltimore present and past. we went to the old industrial area that now housed huge empty lots where factories stood. now the grass is all yellowed and these huge fenced lots look sad. because the history of this city, like many industrial cities, is sad. as we drove on we saw a tumbleweed in the road and stopped to take pictures. (it turned out not to be an actual tumbleweed but looked eerily similar and sadly appropriate for where we were.)

then we went to a downtown area where johns hopkins university and the state had employed eminent domain to tear down many WWII-era rowhouses that had falled into disrepair but were still spottily occupied. these are the kinds of walking tours i want of the cities i visit. we capped off the day by paying a visit to red emma's, a radical bookstore/collective in downtown baltimore. for portland folks, imagine if the red and black and black rose books were in the same space that is about the size of the red and black now. it was nice.

there, i finally got to hold in my hands the book that a friend of mine recently released. the book is called "mythmakers and lawbreakers," edited by margaret killjoy - whom i know as magpie. so i was looking at the book and asked mike if he had seen this book by magpie (who is from baltimore, but i had thought was living in tucson). mike said something like "yeah, magpie is sitting right there." and i saw him and felt a little dumb holding his book and talking about it while he was there.

but we chatted for a long time and caught up. magpie is younger than me but infinitely more creative and was a good friend when i was just getting into organized activism, so i kind of looked up to him - i dont want to say it like that - i have tons of respect and admiration for him as a person. he is on a book tour that is headed to ithaca soon so i put him in touch with my friend there and felt good being able to do that.

then we went back to the house. mike and i did some work on the doors, the ladies went back to the apartment to make some lunch - how cliche! but it was nice, mike and i got to work together and talk about a few things, deeper things. we talked about relationships and specifically the idea of open relationships and we talked about the effect that the anti-globalilaztion movement has had on the state of the world. i havent had conversations like that in awhile and it was nice to exchange ideas, perspectives, and experiences.

we ate fritatta for lunch and it was awesome, then we all did some work on the house. i had agreed to give valentina a ride back to dc that night so after awhile we all had to say goodbye and go on our ways. it was sad because i really enjoyed the time that i spent with mike and my new friends. so, around 6 or 7pm valentina and i set off on the expressways to washington dc. we got lost rather quickly downtown, but were able to right ourselves and get going. i havent really done any driving (willing) at night, and especially not to a place where i hadnt set anything up for myself.

but this is how it was. we found our way to the city and i dropped her off at her friends house, we exchanged emails and parted ways. on my own again. i found a place to park and since it was late already i just took a short walk around the area i was parked in (partially to read as many street signs as possible so i was sure as sure can be that i wouldnt be towed in the night or in the morning) and found a place to check the internet quickly. i got some chinese food and went back to the truck. i was tired and fell asleep quickly.

right now i think i should do some self editing to streamline this entry more, but i am going to stick with the non-linear approach. continuity be damned!

so, back to my washington dc experiences and the fact that i have a poor recollection of my childhood. i have like three or four strong memories of myself as a child, but i couldnt accurately place a year on the memories. they arent very good ones. my first kiss (and a few other memories with that girl - hannah carnell), my "uncle" brian beating my aunt, painting the face of some guy that was drunk on my parents couch, my moms boyfriend (while my parents were still married) - art, was his name - beating my brother, my mom using a wooden paddle on my brother and i, watching our dog - brownie, was her (his?) name - die and calling my mom at bingo...and her refusing to leave bingo until it was over, my dad refusing to punish me with physical violence.

that is the kind of stuff that i have memories of, i say its no wonder i have blocked so much out. but i wonder why i remember so few positive things and so many bad things, certainly it wasnt all bad. maybe i tried to block it all out and these things have simply resurfaced becasue of the fear that they inspired in me. and the good things because of the love they inspired in me, basically because the feelings that i experienced with these things were so strong that there is no way i could keep it down forever.

maybe one day i will try to write everything that i can remember about these experiences, but i would feel bad if my dad read this and felt bad. i would feel much worse if my mom read it because most of my childhood memories of her are bad ones, but she doesnt use the internet and realistically has a .0001% chance of ever reading these memories. i would say my dad has a 50-50 chance. anyway.

we are talking about washington dc here! not my dumb childhood! but, i think i used that as a precursor to actually getting to dc because it was when i was 13 or 14 that my folks ponied up $500 or so to send me to dc for a school trip. i am the middle child out of three, always overlooked, always sinking or flying - never able to just be quo. its like being the middle child removes the possibility of following something middle of the road and enjoying it. i read a book about it in my late teens.

ANYWAY! (geez)

i think my parents probably noticed that i was socially awkward and exhibited no inclination to interact with the people around me in a normal way. so they started shipping me off to places. the first was, as this story goes, washington dc. 1994 or so. i do remember something else from my childhood (i actually remember alot more right now that i am thinking about it and writing it down...). on election day, 1992, i asked my mom who she had voted for. she wouldnt tell me at first, because that is supposed to be a private thing (who knows why?), but i was supposed to be her son.

i told her that she better had voted for bill clinton, and later she whispered to me that she did. in the 1996 elections i told my mom before the elections that she should vote for clinton because that is who i would vote for and since i wasnt allowed to cast a vote she should take my counsel. around 16 was also when i started reading about anarchy and trying to adapt the idea to my everyday life and demeanor. (you must be wondering if i am ever going to get on with this story, but i have to write whats coming, when it is coming, lest it never come again.)

so, lets say 14 years old, i have never been anywhere in the world outside of northwest indiana "the region", chicago, and southern wisconsin. and i was with my class, on a plane for the first time, away from my parents and family for the first time, experiencing life for the first time. real life, out-in-the-world life. needless to say i was ecstatic. we went there and got on a bus and started doing the tourist things. we went to the mall, the washington monument, mount vernon, the capitol building, i dont think we went to the white house, but we went to a number of places.

i think we were there for two days. at the airport on the way back i ran into some hare krishnas. you know those 80's movies that whenever they show an airport they have the obligatory shot of a hare krishna person, it was like that. of course i was interested in these people with just a patch of long hair, robes, chanting, etc. i bought a t-shirt, and took a bunch of free books. i devoured those books and wore the shirt religiously. to me, it was a physical representation of the fact that i had /been somewhere/ and, at the time i could do a decent job of explaining the krishnas to other people.

after that i got very interested in world religion and read many many books about diverse religions, my secret desire was to grow old as a jainist. that was my goal at 15. other people want to be firemen, actresses, lawyers. i wanted to sweep the ground in front of me and live as simply as possible. i think i am doing well in attaining that goal. there is always room for improvement.

with all the tangents i forgot precisely where i wanted to go with this once i came to the end of my first time in dc. i dont want to get into the next trip my parents sent me on, to europe, while they were in the process of divorce. i will save that for sometime else (if i havent already exhausted it). for my 15th birthday my dad took me and my siblings to the city, all i wanted to do was go to this bookstore that had a bunch of obscure (to me and northwest indiana) religious texts and stuff. this is when i bought a number of books by aleister crowley and the satanic bible and such. remind me to write about the time i got fired from a job for owning the satanic bible!

the second time i went to dc (what you thought this was going to end?! sorry, i am flowing right now.) was for may day in the year of 2000. before i left for new york in 1999 i had gotten my first few tastes of protest. my first one was at the age of 18 in south bend indiana. i had met this lady, L.E. (you wonder why my eventual activist nickname became an acronym), on the internet and she invited me to a protest she was organizing. it was against the kosovo war, clinton (my man just a few years earlier) had recently bombed kosovo and was invading or threatening invasion. maybe five of us, upstart punk kids from the suburbs, made some signs and held them up at an intersection. the sign i held read: "war is more amoral than oral sex." i felt very cool/good at that time.

the second protest was in crown point indiana, against the KKK that had gotten a permit to speak on the steps of city hall. it was also my first expereince with "protest zones." my friend steve and i (maybe others) went to the protest, parked, and walked toward the action. we had to go through a guard that would allow a person to have only one key in their pockets. presumably the key to their car where all of their valuables would be safe (bikes didnt exist in this area yet - or maybe they still dont). we went back to the car and left all of our things aside from one key, i beleive it was steves key because we were in his car.

steve had invited me to this protest, he learned of it from his college professor who was also a marxist. we met and i was instantly into this guy. i had been writing and thinking alot about econmic theories as the pertained to capitalism and had come to my own conclusion that some form of socialism would be the easiest way to transition to a stateless society. at the time i was into ayn rand and also thought that capitalism would be the preferred economy for an anarchistic society.

my thoughts process was that communism was a government and economy rolled into one, socialism was similar but with the state maintaing control of production (i thought that socialism would be the easiest path to transition away from government becasue industries controlled by a state could be transitioned to being led by labor unions with less shock than if they were privately owned.) anyway, i was struck by the idea of communism versus democracy/capitalism. (i wrote this stuff when i was 17. much of the stuff that i write as facts, really just arent. dont judge.)

specifically because democracy and capitalism arent intrinsically linked to one another the way communist government and communism as economy are. so, i also felt that anarchy could have capitalism as its economy based on my reading of ayn rand. i no longer beleive such things, but i am trying to give some impression of where my mind was at when i was 17/18. so, steve went to college, had a communist professor. i was introduced to this person and struck by him. i wanted to learn more and i was open to being taught. we exchanged emails and eventually had some conversations over email.

i dont have any of that catalogued any longer. but, then i moved to new york and the professor and i never got to meet more in person. but he emailed me about the 2000 may day protests in dc and i was hungry to go meet these communists that were organizing the protests. he gave me some contacts but i never got with them, i had decided to just go to dc on may 1st and meet them in the streets. by this time i had quit my job, steve had come to visit me, and we had decided to travel to california in his car. but first, we would join the communists in dc for their protests.

we drove down on the night of april 30th, from new york, and slept outside malcolm x park in steves car. the protests were set to start near the park and we wanted to be there early. in the morning we got out and started waiting for the communists to arrive. and we waited and waited and waited. eventually we left. the communists didnt show. i was severely disappointed and this course of events dented my outlook on the communist movement. later i learned that the may day protests were scheduled for may 5th, not may 1st as i had thought.

i take partial responsibility for not fact checking the event, but i do also blame the communists. may day is may 1st, it is internationally recognized as a workers day (except in the us where it is celebrated as "appreciate your boss day" or something, the point being it is so unlike the rest of the world), i think having a may day protest on a day other than may 1st is being untrue to your roots.

we spent some time in the dc ghetto that day and i saw the part of the city that we didnt visit when i was a lad. (interestingly, in the uk, the word "ladette" exists as the word to describe a young girl. i learned this from elaria and was surprised, i thought lad was a word that had no expansion to include women. that must be my male-centrist point of view peeking through.) it was a striking image, because it was basically slums, like you would see in gary indiana. at that point i had always held the beleif that dc was like the emerald city, a glistening example of what america could be if you were rich.

anyway, i think that is enough explanation of my experiences in the city of washington dc. i have been there a few other times but i think i made my point that i have been there enough. and i dont want to be there again. unless i am a senator from the state of wyoming or something, then i would go again.

so, to sum up this post: too many words.