days over the james

well, how to describe the last two days in richmond: awesome.

muna left, which isnt the awesome part, the awesome part is that her housemates invited me to stay in the house even though she wouldnt be here. i am staying in muna's room while she is gone, back to the loft when she returns. she left on wednesday, and after that i went and finished the book i had been reading for way too long.

then i got in touch with my friend jlaw here and we hung out for a short bit. it was nice to see her, her birthday is this weekend and i am glad to be here to celebrate it. she had to go to the gym for a bit and i wanted to come back to the house and take a shower (how glorious is it to have a shower at the ready? super glorious.) when i got back brie was here and asked if i wanted to take a walk with her and the dog.

hey! its me!

i didnt feel like i could say no. mostly because i am now her houseguest and needed to get to know her better, so that we all feel comfortable with me being here. but, also, i wanted to walk the dog with her. mostly because i wanted to be friends with her 10 years ago, i wanted to see if that wouldve been a good decision. (not that either of us are the same people we were 10 years ago, i mean, every single cell in our bodies is new since then, clearly not the same people.)

so, we went out. and she is a talker. which is good, i generally like talkers, if only because it means that i dont have to talk as much. oftentimes i feel dumb with the things i say, but i probably shouldnt. anyway, we talked about her family and families in general, and about who we were 10 years ago. it was really nice to just be thrown in with someone like this. it might make a good reality show to reconnect someone with a person that they wanted to know 10 years ago, but didnt and see what happens when they are under pressure to get to know one another.

maybe it wouldnt. whatever. when we got back from walking the dog i wanted to go meet up with jlaw before she and her crew went to the gogol bordello show. but by that time it was already too late. they were leaving soon and i didnt want to go over there, watch them leave and then go find something to do myself. so i went to the store, bought some beer and an apple. then i went to a park overlooking the river and some industrial places. i drank beer and made some phone calls.

the order of my calls was this: steve, alex, emily, my dad. none of the first three answered, but my dad did. and i hadnt talked to him in awhile so all was good. i told him and bobbie about seeing pete in brooklyn and the things he had said about them. i then my dad and i talked more and more about things. i dont generally ahve long phone conversations, 10 minutes is a long phone conversation for me. but my dad and i talked for about a half hour. it was good.

he did offer me money, which i declined. i dont really need it right now, when i do i will consider his offer. when we got off the phone i was feeling good. i was happy, and i was getting a little bit drunk. but mostly, i liked the place i was at and had a positive conversation with my dad who i dont see as often as i would like too and i wanted to talk more.

i wavered about who to call and i was about to call my old friend focus. we havent really been friends for a number of years, but when we were, we were real good friends. i was eeling sad about losing that friend...but, luckily, steve texted me and i called him back. then we proceeded to have a nice conversation. i talked to him about wanting to call focus and about my realtionship with her and our history.

its funny, because focus actually met steve first and he introduced us, but for some reason she and i hit if off on our own. then we talkeda bout his relationship and babies and richmond and other things, but he had to leave where he was. so he said he would call me back later. i obliged. in the downtime, i walked back to my truck to get more beers and called my friend arturo. he and i talked for a bit, but i let him go when steve called back.

and this time, i remembered what i wanted to talk to him about: his dad. his dad died a number of years ago and the two of them were at odds with one another when it happened. having just talked to my dad and feeling good about the relationship he and i have, i wanted to know how often steve thought about his dad and how much of his dad he sees in himself. heavier stuff, i have never really talked to him about his dad since he died.

it was a good conversation. but my phone died while we were still having it and i decided to call it a night. i walked back to the house and into munas room. i used the internet for awhile and then went to bed. a good day.

sarah

and then the next day happened. this was a day that i was looking forward too, but also nervous about. my third day in rva and i am already fielding guests. see, when i went to boston i had planned to meet up with my friend sarah. i probably need to explain her a bit. she and i met that fateful summer of 2004 while i was on some wild travel/protest spree. i had gotten up to boston, and found my friend adam.

he took me to the lucy parsons center where we spent some time. (this next part *may* be made up) sarah was volunteering there at the time. i fancied her, but i have always been terrified to speak to women that i dont know and have some kind of interest in. i told as much to adam, and he went and chatted her up. thats why adam is a good friend/counterpart for me. he has no fear for initiating things and i have no fear for following things through to the end (i said that some of this may be made up!)

so they chatted and he got her number or something and she came over to the house we were staying at. he had interest in her as well, but once he introduced me to her, i thought she was awesome and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. awesome, not just cute, but an amazing sense of adventure and overall hilarious. we started hanging out more and after the dnc, when the march was leaving i asked her to come along. she did.

but not for the whole thing, she came for like the first week and then visited for another week or so later on. but we hit it off, when she was there we spent most of our time together. we slept in the same tent or whatever sleeping arrangement there was. we never made out or anything, there was no way i would initiate such a thing because of the quarters we were in and how much i liked her as a person. so we were just friends.

the only time i seriously considered making a move was when the march was staying in the basement of a masonic lodge. why we were there? i have no idea, but we had a good day riding tricycles around the parking lot and eating cake, basically just having fun anyway we could. at night we went into the lodge itself. we were strictly forbidden from this, but that was adventure. she ended up taking off all of her clothes and sitting in the high mason's chair (or whatever it is called) a silent protest. after these adventures i considered trying to take things a step further, but i didnt initiate anything.

she came down to nyc for the rnc and we spent alot of time together there. she hung out with me after i had gotten bit by a spider and kept me sane. or kept me crazy, however you want to look at it. after new york i wouldnt see her again. back in portalnd i asked her to come visit me there (but this was also the time i was talking with anna the snitch and was also asking her to come visit me in pdx). she never did.

but we did exchange letters and packages in the mail for awhile. in 2007-ish, after anna the snitch had happened and while my life was unraveling before me i sent her a heartfelt message, that was probably too thick. of the two ladies i was sweet on that summer she wasnt the snitch and i wanted to let her know that i appreciated that. we hadnt talked to one another since i sent that letter, until this trip.

so on this trip we got in touch and i wanted to see her again, we made plans for boston but she left for florida a few days before i got there. we agreed to make an attempt at meeting each other somewhere on her way back up. that somewhere, thankfully, turned out to be rva. to be yesterday. she called me in the late morning and i drove to where she was. she was with her partner, brandon, and her dog, fern.

we met, and hugged, introduced around and then went back to our vehicles and drove away. and that was that. KIDDING! they were hungry and i told them of this great place i knew of in the city, cafe 821. so we drove closer to there and then walked around to the cafe. i gave what history i knew of this place, we talked about now and life and such. it was a little awkward, but it was also nice.

we ate some brunch and then went back to the trucks to get the dog. from there, i continued my tour and took them to belle isle. i hadnt been there yet on this trip and wanted to go, it would be awesome for everyone. so we went there and walked around the island for two hours maybe. it was nice, the river and trees were beautiful, there were things to do and really, it was just how i wanted our meeting to be. an adventure, because that was how it was before. and i am hanging on to all the bits of the past i can so one day i can recreate it and live there. (again, kidding.)

one of the two buildings

eventually we made it to the power plant on the island. this is like the crowning jewel of the place. the power plant is well defunct, but the walls still exist and you can get inside of it very easily. we walked along a wall of the plant until we came to the entrance and then went through a small tunnel to get into the compound. we explored in there for awhile and took pictures. it is a really awesome place.

after that we rounded up and finished our tour around the island and back toward the cars. we spent maybe 5 hours together. it wasnt enough, but it was something. and it was fun. after they left i was a bit sad. i didnt have anything else to do, so i went to some memorial statue near the lucky strike factory and read my book for a while. later i went back to the house and just sat there awhile before going to bed. it was a good day.

this morning i didnt want to get up - at all. i am sleeping in a room, in a bed, there is a shower and a toilet right here. there is internet and a cat. why would anyone ever leave a heaven like this? but i had to get up, i am unsure why i had too, but i knew i did. i went upstairs and made a couple of eggs for breakfast. shortly after i finished up i was surprised by r.j. coming out of the bathroom. i had thought i was alone in the house, but r.j. has friday off.

so the two of us chatted for awhile, and that was nice. all of the people in this house are nice, it must be some kind of paradox. my plan for the day was to learn as much about the civil war and the confederacy as possible. growing up northern, i knew that the civil war existed and who a few of the major players were and a few of the major sites. but now that i am in the south, it isnt just history, it is the history of this place, so i figured there would be alot of things that i could learn here that i couldnt learn as easily elsewhere - unless that elsewhere were wikipedia.

i went to the capitol building. i figured that would be a good place to start, tonnes of information, a free tour, and the ability to interact and ask questions. i found the capitol grounds and went up to the building, but the door i came to said that it wasnt an entrance. there was a sign to the visitor entrance and i followed it around the building. the signs seemed to say to walk around and around the building, eventually you will bore a hole into the ground and gain entry.

so i followed some school kids. they led me to the entrance which was at the bottom of the hill, about 100 yards or so from the building. i went into this entrance and through a metal detector, towards where the tour was just now starting. i learned that the entrance is where it is because a couple of years ago they "expanded" the capitol. but, instead of going out they went down. they dug under the building and into the hill it was on to create a few subfloors and thats where i was.

i learned a great deal about the building, richmond, and its history on the tour, it was very informative. BUT! the whole civil war thing was glossed over. many of the busts in the building were civil war era and civil war "heroes" from virginia. i asked some questions about the civil war, but i didnt get very much information from the guy. the state of virginia has birthed more us presidents than any other state, though. 8 of them! also, i had kind of forgotten/never really knew about the revolutionary war. that was here too.

so i learned about that and the guy that said "give me liberty or give me death," his name was patrick henry. after the tour i walked around the building more and then shortly after i got outside muna called me. we chatted for awhile and then i went to the visitors center to get a map and some info for free places to visit. i was directed towards the civil war history museum down at the old tradegar iron works. also, right where we were yesterday for belle isle.

industry

i went there and walked around the grounds looking at this awesome old rusting iron mill equipment, the waterwheels and turbines and canals, all so fascinating. inside i looked through some maps of battle sites and other things, then watched a movie about richmond and te civil war. upon leaving i looked to the guest book. the staff had typed and printed answers to the question "what do you think the civil war was about?"

i read through a few pages of peoples answers. i was surprised by how much hate was in them and how bitterly the civil war is still being fought by some people. muna thinks that having obama elected is a sign that the civil war is over (not that she agrees with him as a person, we are talking the politics of race in the united states.) i can see the point and really dont have any choice but to agree. but richmond will always be the capitol of the confederacy.

after that i walked over to brown island. there was a pier i wanted to get out on and see the river from. it was a really nice view from there and i stood there for a long time, taking in the breeze, belle isle, the rocks and the rapids. i looked the other direction and saw the pilings for a bridge that was destroyed when the confederacy fled richmond (and burnt much of the city.) i just saw a bunch of history and it was overwhelming.

i kept on. i walked around this small island, the island is made of the james on one side and a canal on the other, and found some steps behind a construction site. i was tired from all the walking but i took these steps down. they led to a path under a railroad bridge with the james on one side (sometimes both) and a small patch of land with a tall retaining wall on the other. where the river was far from the wall there were people living.

there were clotheslines and tarps, tents and belongings, like a little city within a city. it was nice. i kept on walking and eventually came upon the "pipeline walkway." which was a pipeline of some sort that had been cemented over. you could walk on the pipeline to continue on the path. there were signs recommending that you do not attempt to walk on the pipeline if the river is over it. it wasnt, so i went.

the pipeline walkway

it was awesome. after awhile it turned to like a gangway. all metal walkway with rails on either side and very narrow. it went for a couple hundred yards and i loved every moment of it. on the other side was another railroad bridge that went over the james and then a bridge for cars and pedestrians. i thought about walking over the rail bridge, but there were a bunch of signs warning of prosecution and i decided against it.

i went down to the pipeline walkway. i started walking along it again and then i hear this incredible loud music coming from an island in the middle of the river under the railroad bridge. i listened and looked to try to find where it was coming from and why it was coming from there. i couldnt discern anything. after some contemplation i decided to go back and go across the railroad bridge, despite the signs, and discover the source.

so i walked/ran across the bridge and as i got nearer the music i could see a ladder from the bridge down to the island and some bikes on the bridge. i though it would be some kids with a stereo or something but what i found was so much better. it was a couple of homeless folks that lived there, they had a generator and a semi-permanent dwelling and were partying under the bridge! i wanted to go and join them but they looked at me apprehensively as if i were a cop or something.

so i left after a minute, but with a large smile on my face. i felt better just knowing that they were there. i went back to my truck and decided i would come back to the house to write. shortly after i got here, however, i was accosted by brie. she wanted to share some beer that she had gotten (from a local brewery) and have a cigarette. i obliged. after that she invited me up to dinner with them and that was so nice.

i talked about my day and some other things while we had fake-meatball sandwiches with tater tots and some boiled cabbage. it was a good dinner. it is so nice that they have invited me in so completely and are so nice to me. after dinner brie left for a movie with her friend and r.j. and i talked while we put away dishes. it was nice, i told him about my life, how it fell apart and why i am on this trip and such. talking to people is such a good thing.

even if it is terrifying.

mobius strip / everything comes full circle

part of this trip was to reconnect with the people and places of my past. when i was 19 i moved to new york, at 20 i moved to olympia, and then back to indiana. shortly after my 22nd birthday i moved to portland. i have been many places and met many people in between that time. i wanted to reconnect with as many people as possible from the places i have lived and been.

the one place that i wouldnt make it too is olympia. no big deal, really. i didnt have any friends from when i lived there that i could find again. and i have been there since i lived there to revisit the places were important to me. but, in this cyclical world everything comes full circle.

i was in fredicksburg, va yesterday it seemed like a nice place to stop on the way to richmond. it was about 50 miles south of dc, far enough away to be away from dc and close enough to give me the opportunity to span my dc to rva trip over two nights, like i had planned. i got to fredicksburg and it was dark, i walked around the historic downtown area and found a nice little coffee shop to spend some time in. eventually i found a place to park and slept.

in the morning i went back to the coffee shop and muna called me. muna is my good friend in rva, the one person that i had planned to see from the beginning of this trip. she had just gotten back to richmond from portland (ironic, i know) and was leaving the next day for the weekend in pennsylvania. she urged me to come to rva that night instead of the next day. then we parted ways on the phone.

i finished up in the coffee house, walked around the town in the daylight. i went down to the river and watched its slow movement for awhile and then up and down the historic streets reading the plaques on the roadside. now that i am in the south - officially (richmond is the capital of the confederacy) - i am going to be learning a whole lot about the civil war and the civil rights movement. i am game for that.

then i found a nice cafe that served breakfast, i was hungry and sat down for something to eat. while i was eating i realized that there was absolutely no reason for me to stay in fredicksburg another night or to drive somewhere in between the 60 miles to richmond from there. my friend will be in town this night and i should go make this happen. when i finished it was decided, i walked back toward my truck with the intention of driving straight to rva.

i was nervous, but not about seeing muna or the other folks here that i know. my nervousness was because the world ends after richmond. to me, right now, there is nothing south of here, no reason to go somewhere else, this is the place to be. and i knew that once i got here i would start to feel some anxiety about "what to do next." i decided that after richmond would be a turning point in the trip, much like i turned a corner once i left my folks house in indiana.

so, i drove. it took about an hour and i came into the city of richmond around 4:pm, and went straight to muna's workplace. we met and embraced and it was great. i dont know if i have enough words to describe how awesome i think muna is, i dont know if there are enough words in existence even if i knew them all. i met her the first time i was in rva, in 2004. rather randomly.

so, let me tell the story of the first time i was here. i have touched on it before, but as sure as life is cyclical, it is also redundant. it is like a safeguard. anyway.

i came here in the summer of 2004 to meet up with some food not bombs folks that i had been organizing with to try to pull off a national fnb convergence, in nyc just before the rnc (let me see if i can write more three letter acronyms...). the organizing (that i remember) was mostly coming from richmond, there were folks from boston, cleveland, and portland helping to pull this idea off. then there were the fnb folks from nyc that were doing all they could to stop such a convergence from happening. the reason that i have gathered is because they thought there would be too much happening in the city at once, it would stretch resources think and brring undue police attention to such a convergence.

i clashed with the nyc folks very strikingly. and at that time i was very active in the discussions for this, i was passionate about fnb and wanted to part of bringing the movement together. my specific goal stemmed from my desire to bring together the six different fnb groups in portland, and that catapulted into the idea of regional gatherings and a national gathering to meet and share ideas with different folks and to talk about a charter, some revisioning of the fnb movement and other things.

feel free to call me an idealist.

so, eventually the idea for the convergence timed just before the rnc was completely shot down and became a completely unrealistic endevour. it is not only impossible but just wrong to try to organize something in a city without the help and cooperation (desire) of the people involved in the local community. if you want some backup for this statement (of impossibility) feel free to read up about che guevaras attempts to instill communist revolution via guerilla warfare in the congo and bolivia.

but, i was headed east anyway and wanted to meet these folks that i had been discussing and organizing with over the internet. i considered them my friends. and i wanted to meet my new friends. the folks that i wanted to meet were jen lawhorne, another person called jen, a person called tex and some other folks. i made arrangements with tex to stay at her house when i got into town (i am quite unsure how i got to richmond).

so i arrived and met tex, she was busy but let me stay on her couch. then i met jlaw and i got a bicycle and we went all over the place. it was great. i was also heavily involved in the indymedia world and wanted to meet the rva imc folks while i was there. enter muna. she was working on the imc and i was taken to her office and we met. we became friends and hung out. went to a noise show and listened to some metal (which at the time i thought was just an ironic outlet, but she indeed loves metal). i spent maybe a week here and fell in love with the place and the people and have always wanted to come back.

one of the things that i fell in love with specifically was the james river and belle island. jlaw took me to the river and we waded and swam and had a great time. then we went to belle island which had this huge concrete structure on it. it has no roof and is often used for parties and such, but i decided then that when the rev comes, i want to be in the cofederate capital holding down belle island.

but then i left north for boston, to do other things that summer/fall. since i have already passed through those places, i am pretty sure i have exhausted the things that i was a part of there. no more of that.

fast forward to 2005. i am in austin, texas at a national indymedia gathering. i am stoked. again, i get to meet many folks that i have only discoursed online with and now we get a chance to actually see each other and discuss ideas and grow. i will elaborate on this conference and my expereince there when i am closer to austin, tx. however, i mention it becasue i met muna again there. she didnt know anyone else at the conference but me.

at one point in the conference, at a seminar, she was very emotionally hit by what was being said and had to leave the place. i was at the same seminar and stayed behind. i thought about going to comfort her, but i just wasnt confidant enough that was something she needed. she is such a strong person, but later we met up and she was upset with me, her only friend at the place, for not reaching out to her and helping. i felt pretty bad about that and thought for a long time about the way i interact with people.

like, if i just wanted people to like me superficially or if i actually wanted to create strong and lasting bonds with people, be a real person, share emotion and create solidarity and love and all the things that my actions would suggest. my actions and my mind werent on the same page, but i rethought that, i am still thinking about that, i want to be a better person to people and treat them with as much respect and love as if we were all a family.

because in this fight, we have to be a family, or we fall apart. i fell apart. (right now, because this paragraph was going to end here and because some of these words may be hard to swallow, i want to say that i really do beleive these things. i think i always have, but it is that gap where i have to get my body and mind and voice on the same page as my heart and soul that prevents me from expressing these things as well as i'd like. i am working on it. always.)

fast forward again to portland, circa 2006-ish. muna is in las vegas doing union organizing with the seiu. i am in portland. she calls and says she wants to visit portland, to celebrate her birthday! how awesome is that. she comes and visits emily and i, stays in the guest bedroom of the mississippi house, meets my friends, housemates, and other people. we go to a bar and sing karaoke (the default way to spend a birthday). and everything is great, we are just good friends that have a couple years of knowing each other under our belts. how wonderful.

then, of course, i started my meltdown and in 2009 we started to reconnect. and all i wanted to do was come to richmond to visit her. and here i am.

i got to her work and met her mom, then the two of us went to the farmers market. i met some more people, we ate at the farmers market potluck, talked. then she had to do an orientation type thing for work. she works with a nonprofit that helps mayan women in guatemala. i wish i could explain more. we sat a coffee shop where she was doing her orientation and i was just off to the side using the computer.

when that finished we got my truck and drove back to her house. prepare to enter the cyclical world. (not just yet, but prepare.) first off, the house she lives in is absolutely amazing. it is two stories and a basement, muna lives in the basement with her own entrance and bathroom. it is nice down here, then we went upstairs and i met one of her housemates, r.j. he was making dinner, that looked amazing, and the house upstairs was very clean yet well lived in. there had been a fire in the house and was then redone completely by the other housemate and her dad.

there are two lofts and like four flights of stairs. three bathrooms, kind of like a maze getting through it but just so fucking cozy. it is the type of place i would forever want to live in. in the backyard is a clubhouse and garden. there are four cats and a dog, and they are all nice animals. i was loving it. muna and i took the dog for a walk while r.j. was finishing up dinner. we walked in the rain to an overlook and it was nice.

we got back and walked in a different door. her other housemate, bree, was sitting there. as soon as i saw here i knew that i had met/seen her before. my face probably had some wierd look that people make when their brains are working much harder than they are capable of. but we only met for a moment and then we went back downstairs. i took a shower and then went back upstairs to join everyone.

in a state of bluntness that i dont think is characteristic of me, i was standing across the counter from bree and said "bree, you look so familiar to me, how do i know you?" and then we figured it out. (ready for the cyclic thing?) she lived in olympia at the same time i was there, and was a server at le voyeur, a paradox palace like vegan diner. i used to go to the voyeur about 4 times a week and really liked her as a server. if i were ever to meet people in olympia and be part of the "community" there i would want her to be one of my friends.

she is short and small, but with very long hair which she often wore in braids and she frequently wore a cowboy hat. i liked her style and the disaffected sass that is very attractive to me. this encounter was not unlike a similar one that i had experienced before in portland.

the paradox palace was a place that i would go *almost* everyday in portland for the first year or so that i lived there. steve would often accompany me or go by himself. there were two servers there that we had crushes on. of course, we never did anything about that. the person that i liked was cira, of course i didnt know her name at the time. i dont know how to make this a short story, so i will do a hack job of it. while i was traveling in 2004, some new people moved into the mississippi house that i had to approve of over email.

they were a married couple and seemed like great people, cira and ben. when i got back from my travels to meet them i was dumbstruck to find that it was the same server that i had crushed on just two years earlier, when i was a completely different person. i cant say that we hit it off, i was certainly unsure how to approach the living situation, but when emily came to visit we all became good friends and...and i just love the way life works things out. i want to think of it like emergence theory or something, but i have no way to actually tie this together as the best most logical way for life to work.

it just is.

so we had a nice dinner, sweet potato quesadillas, and the four of us talked at the table. eventually, i think, we all fell into a nice groove and got along well. after dinner bree, muna and i went to have cigarettes and drink a beer. then muna and i sat downstairs talking for awhile while she packed for her trip this weekend, bree made up one of the loft beds for me and we called it a night. a very good first night in richmond. i can only hope for more like this one!

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.

a story of one's life experiences, revealing faults and confidential personal details

i have a couple of confessions that i need to make. i want to call them confessions, but they might just be observations or random facts of my life. (really, i am just cheating the idea of writing, something i learned from douglas coupland books. when you want to say something but dont want to explain it, just use large type and/or numbered lists.)

1. i left baltimore last night and came to dc.
2. i do not like dc. there is a camera on every corner and military that patrols the streets. kind of like when i was in tijuana. i stayed here last night and thought to stay today, but f that.
3. my trip was initially dubbed "my magnificent travel of the summer of 2009" - it is almost winter now.
4. i want to take two days to get from here to richmond, but there doesnt seem to be much in between.
5. i realized today that i have not really thought about my trip or the places/things/people i want to see after richmond. now that i am so close to there, i have been trying to think harder about the future of this trip and what i had in mind for it, but there has never been a mind for it. richmond was the initial end of my trip. now it will be like starting over again. post richmond will be part three.

the world is so much different when you have a friend.

seriously. the other day i was just walking around the streets of baltimore, downtown near inner harbor and not having any fun. basically i was just searching for ways to waste away hours so that the day would be over. i write that to sound like a shitty existence. the skies are darkening as rain clouds roll in and burst upon you in short yet violent spasms. so i just found a comfortable place that i could sit inside of and use my computer and have regular access to water and bathrooms.

after a couple of hours i used my cell phone. it isnt something that i use daily (aside from checking the time as i waste away the hours, and see how painfully slow the world around me is moving), but i am becoming less and less terrified of calling people that i havent seen in a long time, or strangers. this, apparently, is called progress. thanks, barack.

i had been trying to get in touch with my friend ryan harvey, but that wasnt happening. instead i called my friend mike mcguire. mike is a carpenter that i met in miami in 2003, he helped us set (or we helped him) up the convergence space there. creating different rooms and working surfaces and the like. he was a very nice person, and we worked together again in boston or new york, maybe both. but that was the last i saw of him.

enter this trip. i tried to call ryan when i was in st louis visiting with a friend of ours, but ryan didnt answer his phone. mike did. and he was upbeat and happy to hear from me and told me to get in touch with him when my trip lands me in baltimore. cue cellphone. when i called, he didnt answer, so i left probably a dumb sounding sad message full of desperation. he called me back shortly thereafter (i was tempted to let the voicemail pick up this call to gauge what was happening, but my waning phone fear convinced me otherwise).

he was moving a refridgerator from his parents house to his new house and said he could use my help. he told me where his house was and i walked back to my truck to drive over there. it was strange how quickly i went for having no purpose to having direction and a task. i guess thats what friends are for.

i got a little lost finding his house, but probably because i took my own direction instead of his. when i arrived, he was in his house with three ladies and a large refridgerator. it was in the basement and the task at hand was to lift it up the steps and have it live on the main floor. i knocked on the window and someone came to let me in. this person turned out to be italian. with her was ila, another italian, and mikes sister. once inside we wrested the plastic and metal monstrosity up the stairs and then had a beer.

mike showed me around the house, introduced me to the folks there and we kept on as if the last five years were time warped and folded over so that they actually happened, but our interaction is similar to us seeing one another just yesterday. eventually his sister left and i found that these two italians were part of the house, so i made more of an effort to talk to them and listen. they have very good english and are very talkative.

something that has always impressed me is that european people that learn english as a second language often have a better command of the language than people who grow up in the united states. i dont know if is that they have free university to understand more words and their applications or if it is just the way they learned. these two ladies, i beleive, are just way smarter than me and thats why they are better.

but i love it when they try to explain a word that they cannot recall or cannot think of the proper english word and use something else. or when i say something that they may not understand or something that is decidedly united statesian that makes them laugh. my face hurts from smiling so much. like when i said "geez" the other day they responded with a chorus of "geez's" as if it were the funniest thing ever. i like being around people from different cultures.

anyway, tangential (which is really just a lack of focus.)

the house that we were in was not livable yet, so we closed up there and walked over to the apartment, about a block away where mike and eliza live until the house is ready. ila is visiting from boston. there, ila and eliza made some food (risotta soup, i guess) while mike tidied up the place and i marveled at the surrounding/did what i can to aid in the cleanup.

the apartment is like a basement i guess, but a commercial space basement. the kitchen has a broken refridgerator that is used for storage and the stove is an outdoor grill with a one-burner attachment. the shower was just a bathtub that was tucked in a corner of the living room without any walls or adornments, i thought that it was just for show until i was told otherwise. mikes room is part of the living room, like a studio, but it is very large. then there is a shop and off of that is eliza's room and the toilet.

we ate some dinner there and had a few more drinks, and just chatted. it was an awesome way to find myself after feeling a bit despondent just hours earlier. i slept on the couch that night. i love the way this life works out most of the time.

for some reason i didnt sleep long. i am not entirely sure why, but around 6:30a i was up and needed to work my way through the labyrinthine space to find the bathroom and after that i laid down again but couldnt sleep. so i gathered a few things and went for a walk around the neighborhood. eventually i found myself at a nice little diner that reminded me of "the vita" in portland. i sat there and had a cup of coffee and read my book.

mike called while i was there and invited me to come to the farmers market with them. i walked on back and the four of us hopped in his truck to visit the market, where they have many friends. it was nice there, i walked around a few times and had some samples, bought an apple. then we went back to the house to start working. this is the first time i have really done work (and this isnt /really/ work) in months. i was happy to help out, even if i didnt bring much to the table.

mike showed us all tasks to do and how to do them, we got on it and he went for supplies. we spent much of the day in that space. eventually ryan came to visit there, and that was nice. he was having a show later in the day and invited us to come to it. i had already planned on it, ila and eliza wanted to come with. mike had to stay behind to work. the show was a matinee with four or five bands. we got there on time, which in the world of folk/punk/rock shows means early.

the three of us walked arond the inner harbor area, just where i was the previous day feeling a bit down, but now with two people with me and one of them ablet o explain what the places were, it was wonderful. it was pouring rain, which was uncomfortable, but we managed a decent walk around the harbor and back to the show. we showed up a half hour late and ryan was also just getting there, the first act had only recently started.

there were two acts and then ryan, whom i havent seen play live in years. before he went on he asked me which songs he should play but he didnt remember all the words tot he ones i wanted and i couldnt remember very many of them. he played pretty well, it was the first time i had seen him plug in and that was strange. but it was more like a real venue, not someones house. after him we stayed for two more acts. the three of us hadnt really eaten at all that day and mike had pizza for us back at the house. so we piled back into my home and drove back to mikes.

there we met another character in this baltimore play. her name is valentina and whe is from venezuela. and it was great. ila and eliza speak italian, spanish, french (i am pretty sure), and english - maybe more. valentina speaks spanish, portugese, italian, and english - again, maybe more. mike speaks english, spanish and is learning italian. i speak english. i felt a bit out of place, especially when they were all talking to each other in various languages. ask in italian answer in spanish or english, or vice versa. i enjoyed it but it kept me out of the loop a fair amount.

we worked on the house some more in preparation for the night. it was going to be the first night that people slept in the house. so we got much of the "easy" work done and then cleaned up. i went and got some beer and we also had sangria. the five of us had a cheers and starting hanging out. shortly another italian person came over, mossimo is what i heard his name to be. with him was his friend amy, she was born int he united states. so the room was dominated by three italians, three united statesians, and one venezualen.

ila suggested we play a game called "salad bowl" where each person writes a phrase or word on a sheet of paper and the paper and folded and put into a bowl. two teams were formed, each team had to choose randomly fromt he bowl and one person had to get her teammates to guess the exact phrase on the paper. it was progressively harder. the first round you could use any words except the exact ones in the phrase. the second round was charades and the third round you could just say one word and the team would have to guess the phrase from just one word.

you repeat the same phrases so it is as much memory as it is guessing and explaining. it was fun and got us all involved more. some of the phrases were in spanish or british english and sometimes the non-u.s. folks had trouble understanding the phrases. it was fun, my team with mike and ila ended up winning 20-19. well fought, tough game. afterwards mossimo and amy left and we hung out for a little while longer before turning in ourselves.

really, it has just been amazing. these people i have met are very nice and funny people. again, i am struck by the luck i have with the people that filter through my life. i feel so lucky. and its days like these that remind me how much i love my life.