everything is catching up

life is a whirlwind, and the past two weeks or so have been life. i decided on a path to track my way back to portland, 7000 miles over 80 days or so, but that has been scrapped due to mounting pressure. i talked to my brother on his birthday, when i was in beaufort, sc. we talked for about a half hour and he was amazed that i plan to make this "trip" last about nine months. he exclaimed "thats almost a year!" i concurred.

while i have thought for long periods of time about what this all means, hearing him be amazed by it reinforced that this is kind of amazing. but not in all good ways. after i decided to forego heading south on the outer banks i have been moving fast, things dont seem as exciting and i dont really know my purpose any longer. especially after i mapped my way back to portland, because i just made a route that would take me the few places that i want to see or to the places where there are people i want to visit, but the in between time has been and looks to be just moving for no good reason.

my favorite kind of bridges, beaufort.

i was in sc for a couple of days, myrtle beach, beaufort, charleston, maybe somewhere else. then i went to georgia, savannah. i spent the night there and then left the next day. i stopped in brunswick, but the town wasnt very active and i left after being there only a couple of hours. i had thought to go visit a hostel in the woods that boasts treehouses for folks to stay in. but since i had mapped my plan and my remaining money down to the last i wasnt able to justify the $25/night that it would cost to stay in the treehouses. and i wasnt able to find wireless to see where this place was in relation to brunswick. but mostly i just wanted to more on.

so, after barely two days in the state of georgia i found myself staying the night in jacksonville, fl. i was there for two nights (i think) and then thanksgiving was coming up. i knew everything would be closed wherever i was and jacksonville was just so large that i didnt want to be there any longer. so i went to gainesville. i drove there at night, which is a rare thing for me, i dont like driving at night. in gainesville i found a place to park and in the morning it was thanksgiving, and everything was closed. i wen to the library and sat outside for a bit using the wireless and then i went to the college and walked around.

i was hoping to find at least the student union open, so i could use the bathrooms, but no. so i sat around there reading for a few hours and then back to the library. around 5:pm, things started opening up again. i went to a bar where they had pbr for a dollar and a special thanksgiving dinner. i ate that - the first thing i had eaten that day - and had a few beers. i wasnt happy but it was okay. the night before i started showing symptoms of a cold. and i was just feeling horrible.

the bridge to savannah

i assumed that it was from being outside all the time and although the weather is nicer here it is still cold at night and i am basically sleeping outside. so i was pretty miserable. the next day i decided to leave gainesville, there was a big football game happening there the next day and i didnt want to get caught up in that. so i drove to tallahassee. i am in tallahassee now and it is okay. just before downtown there was a coop that i stopped in to look for some things to help my body deal with this cold. things were so expensive, so i just bought a bulb of garlic and resolved to purge my system with that and to start taking the cayenne pills again.

i stopped taking the cayenne pills while i was in indiana. i had taken half of the bottle since i bought it. i stopped because they are pretty painful. but this morning i took one again. it takes about 15 minutes for it to kick in, but when it does you have to poop and there is no stopping it. fire is in your throat and your stomach. it feels so bad. i was at the coffee shop, and i went to the bathroom. i sat in there for awhile, but when i felt that i had been in there too long, i pulled up and came out. i was dizzy and i was sweating, my entire body was shaking. i went and sat back down, but after a couple of minutes, stretching, walking around, drinking tea and water, i couldnt help it.

i felt like i had to vomit, so i went back into the bathroom. i got on the ground and stuck my fingers down my throat. a little bit of bile came up but then i just had to poop some more. i was in there another 10 minutes or so and then it was over. the discomfort is intense and last about 25 minutes. it feels like you are dying. when i came back out, though, i was fine. my head felt better and i wasnt focusing on my cold anymore. there was still visible beads of sweat on my forehead, luckily there were only two other people in the shop.

but then i was fine, i felt better and i debate about taking these pills. in the long run they seem to help, but that short period of pain is so intense, i am not sure i can keep up with it again. anyway. about my change of plans.

when i was talking to my brother on the phone he said that he wanted to fly me back up for christmas, that it would be a good thing to consider. the next day i was talking to my sister on the internet and she said similar things. she said that it had been so long since i spent a christmas with them, and she is right. i cant remember the last time i was "home for the holidays." in 1999 i made a special surprise visit from new york to visit my family on thanksgiving. i was in the area in december of 2003 but i dont think i was there for christmas. and i think that is it.

so i mulled it over. then on thanksgiving, my dad said the same thing and that he wanted to buy me a plane ticket, that i should just tell him where i will be and he would fly me back. so i looked into it a bit, and this is where my route plan took a change. i figured, at the rate i am traveling and the previous route i was going to take, i would be around austin when my dad wanted to fly me back. roundtrip flights from there to chicago, with the added cost of taking a bus from the airport to indiana, came out to about $380. if i were to continue to new orleans and from there start heading north again, i would be able to hit kentucky and tennessee, and make it back to valpo around the same time as they would fly me there. new orleans to valpo is about 1000 miles, if i were to drive it would cost $120 one way and then i would have to remap my way back.

so, i made the decision to do that. drive back north for the holidays and instead of paying for a plane ticket, they can just reimburse my gas costs and things would be about the same. and it was more than just that, this journey is supposed to be about finding myself. what self am i without my family? i have spent years and years away from them and they have still alwyas been there and supportive of whatever it is i find myself doing. i couldnt ask for a better family.

so thats the new plan. i will probably leave tallahassee tomorrow and then head towards new orleans. and there, i plan to cut my hair and shave my beard. i know, i have actively been against this for most of my trip. however, it is time. i think that all this hair is weighing me down emotionally and preventing me from experiencing all i can. see, this beard is very recognizable and i look like a bum. it has been hard to explore places becasue i am quickly singled out and moved along. so i have made this decision. yesterday as i was leaving gainesville, i stopped to do laundry and while i was there i made this decision.

i got out my sewing scissors and went into the bathroom, by intention was to cut it all off right then. there wasnt a mirror, so i just trimmed my mustache and went to my truck to examine the job i did. it was pretty bad and i assumed that any attempt at cutting more hair would be equally as bad. not to mention i would have hair all over me and i wouldnt be able to shower it away. i havent had a shower since i left richmond. it isnt as bad as it was in the summer, because the weather is cooler and i dont sweat, but still, i would like to take a shower. when i am settled again i have made the resolution to shower every day. that probably wont last long, but it is indiciative of how much i miss the things that we take for granted.

relationships.

growing up, i didnt have very many friends at any one given time. i remember some of my younger birthdays there were always all these people i didnt know were there to celebrate my birthday. i didnt really care if they were there or not, at the time i wouldve much rathered sitting inside and playing nintendo. later i realized that my mom just had her friends come over. some of them were of similar age to me, but as i said, i didnt care. so i guess i was anti-social.

however, there was one friend that i made. well, most of the time i had at least a person that was around my own age that i considered my friend. i dont know their order, but i think jeremy jackson was my first friend. he lived about a mile away and i would go over to his house or he would come to mine and we would play nintendo together. probably something like excitebike, that was a fun game.

the strongest memory i have of hanging out with him, the two of us were at my house playing some game in the living room and my brother and one of his friends came to the house. he either wanted something or just wanted to show off and he punched both me and jeremy in stomach. he knocked the wind out of us and we doubled over. i dont remember jeremy ever coming back to my house after that. i am sure he did, but i dont remember it.

there was also the girl next door. her name was hannah and i had a crush on her. i guess we had a crush on each other. she was the first person i kissed. i was dared to kiss her at the roller rink one night. i was so nervous. i had to skate up to her and she was completely surrounded by all of her girl friends. everyone knew what was about to happen. i was probably only 12 at the time, but i had been taking these little heart shaped pills that i guess were some kind of upper. i had taken a lot of them.

i got over there and into the crowd of girls and i was shaking and barely pecked her on the lips and raced away as fast as i could. oh, if i could go back and do things differently. i laugh when i think about it. then (in my memories) she and i were in my front yard listening to her favorite band at the time - air supply. i dont know what the song was. anyway, her mom eventually broke up with the neighbor and they moved to the other side of town. which was a completely different school district. i only saw her one time after that.

my parents were divorcing and not too long after that my dad remarried and we moved to a completely different town. this was a big change for me. at the time my friend was a person called gerimy haines. he was 16 and i was 15. that summer, we "borrowed" my aunts car for an extended amount of time and went on a shoplifting spree. we had thousands of dollars worth of things in the car before we got caught. it was ridiculous, we didnt really need to steal things, we just did for the rush of it, because it was fun.

but by the end of that summer he went to some juvenile prison and his mom moved them to oklahoma. i never saw him again. just before that summer started i had switched schools about three quarters of the way through the school year and was in the process of reinventing myself. i certainly didnt think about it like this at the time, but this was my plan.

i was going to create myself two people. one was the shy person that doesnt talk to anyone, but certainly looks strange. i had long hair at the time (about twice as long as now) and wore a green jansport backpack with tons of pins and keychains and other things hanging off of it. they didnt mean anything, but i was trying to get noticed and remembered without saying anything. i wanted people to wonder and guess about me and i would never say anything.

the other part was the bad boy, reckless and over confident. the stealing spree was part of this, i am sure part of it was acting out to my parents breaking up and each remarrying. i was always the middle child anyway - overlooked - and with them both focusing on their new lives i was lost and just doing whatever i wanted. when i got caught stealing that summer, with 1000's of dollars of merchandise, i was given some kind of parole and community service from the courts. i got absolutely zero punishment from my parents.

anyway, this two character self was how i met my next friend. i was the wierd new kid in the school and someone found my ruse interesting. his name was alex labounty. he was interested in my eccentricities and would follow me when i went to lunch. everyday i would walk the block to the supermarket and steal some fruit, then go sit outside and eat it while reading a book. he saw me do this and told me about it. i am not sure how this developed into a friendship, but it did.

he came back to my house and we started hanging out. eventually the two of us conspired against the school and worked on and disseminated an underground newsletter. it was called 'the cold page' because, apparently, it was filled with the cold hard truth...and it was only one page, double sided. we sourced stories from students and wrote our own stories, my dad wrote an article, and we became infamous. we would stand and hand these out on school grounds and each time a new issue came out we would be suspended for it.

there were four issues. but, the release party was where my lifetime of just having one friend dissipated. alex was a well known person. not popular in the sense of everyone being jealous of him, but everyone knew him and he was friendly. he was a good person for me to be friends with. we had a party in my parents basement, complete with beer, liquor, and jello shots. my parents supplied the booze and i

alex and melissa (circa (1998)

think we took donations at the door or something. a bunch of people came, people that one day would mostly become my friends.

this was where i formally met steve for the first time. michelle levy (whom i had a crush on at the time), brought her friend melissa medrano (who had a crush on steve), these three people, along with alex, would become my foundation for that year.

and this whole lead up is specifically to talk about relationships. i know i should finish the story that i started above, but i am stopping it there. in my life, i have only had 2 girlfriends. and we end the story above because the first one was melissa medrano. we became very close and great friends over the next year and a half or so, oftentimes just hanging out with each other. she would do my hair, and i have no idea what i would do for her, maybe boost her self confidence.

we didnt start dating until we were both getting out of high school. she had moved since and went to a different school. i had gotten kicked out of school (for too many suspensions and absent days) and had to go to summer school to actually graduate. we dated exclusively for about nine months after that, and gave our virginity to one another. very special. but, i ended up breaking up with her. i was feeling closed off, i didnt want to be stuck in indiana for my entire life and i could see that happening. so, i broke up with her and took off for dallas texas.

i wont talk about that just yet, i was only there for a week or so. but when i came back she and i still saw each other casually and i was still uncertain of my future. i got a job selling magazines door to door, with a traveling caravan. we left eastward and i was kicked off the caravan somewhere in ohio. i was kicked off because i had brought a lot of books with me at the time, one of them was the satanic bible. i was asked to throw it away or be kicked out. i opted to be kicked out.

then i sublet my brothers apartment in chicago, but worked in indiana and spent a number of nights at my parents house. it was here when melissa and i had sex for the last time, the condom we were using broke and it freaked me out. in the morning she went to the clinic and got the morning after pill, i remained freaked out. the thing i was scared to death of was that i would be stuck in indiana for the rest of my life and never see anything else. melissa getting pregnant would have almost sealed that deal. (is what i thought at the time, now i realize that there are options.)

without illuminating her on this point, my fear, i left again. this time, for a long time. the sublet in chicago ran up and i was staying in a car that i was borrowing from my folks, all of my stuff was in there, and i dont think anyone but steve knew that i was leaving. after my folks celebrated my 19th birthday, i went "home" to the car and sat there for a moment. then took off. i went to new york.

i was there for nine months, and then traveled across the country with steve. just what i had always wanted. we eventually ended up back in indiana and i wasnt ready for my galavanting to be over. i had recently read about olympia, wa in time magazine and decided that i was going to move there. i went online, found an

steve and i in olympia

apartment complex and put down a downpayment. i caught a bus a week later and went to olympia i had never been within 1000 miles of the place and knew not a single person nor a single thing. this was the life i wanted.

i made it okay there, again, for 9 months. then steve came back and we rode bikes down the california coast for a few months and lived outside and stuff. eventually i acquiesced to the easier street of life and went back to indiana. it had been almost two years since i left and i still didnt think i was ready to be back, but i was. i worked for my dad and got my own little house in unincorporated gary. and this is where we pick up the story again.

because, it is about relationships, specifically the kind i fancy with members of the opposite sex. i hadnt had sex with anyone, i had only even made out with maybe two people, since i left. melissa was gone, she wanted no part of me...and she still doesnt. so, i got back on the wagon and started trying to meet people. but i didnt have any real good role models for what a positive sexually-inclined relationship would look like.

so i muddled together my own form of it and went with it. i have never actually asked someone out on a date, i would have parties and random ladies i would meet at my house i would eventually have a sexual relationship with but nothing else. this went on for about a year and a half, in that time i slept with maybe 3 ladies. but i made out with a whole bunch of ladies and gained a lot of self confidence. the closest thing to a relationship that i encountered at the time was with my friend beckia. we saw each other regularly and when i was depressed about life she was there and supportive.

but then i left to portland and my new found self confidence quickly withered. it took me about six months to actually meet people, and about nine months to establish friends. i had seen some women casually since i had been there, and relationships were the furthest thing from my mind. i was 22 years old, just getting involved in the anti-globalization movement and regaining my self confidence. i was getting better at speaking to people and in front of people and explaining the things that i thought. i thought i was a good person.

and the people around me were awesome, we partied and protested and it was great. then comes miami. and i am talking about this stuff now because i am not going to make it to miami. by 'this stuff' i mean, i am going to talk about my relationship with emily, how we met and such, and we met in miami. when we broke up the other day she asked me why i never write about her on my blog, especially not in a positive light. the light that i use when i am talking about my memories from the people i meet on the road.

i didnt have a good answer for it, but after thinking about it, i do have a good answer. it is because these people that i am seein gon the road i have had upwards of 10 years in many of the cases to digest and compress the time that we had spent together previously. and i get to see them now based on what i knew them as then. and it is easy to talk about the good things because thats what i remember. i know that we are always generating memories, but emily and i are so recent that i havent had time to digest all that we have been through to talk about them with any certainty.

anyway, so i went to miami in 2003 to protest the ftaa. it was probably the most significant action that i had been involved with. partly becasue of my level of involvement in the organizing, partly because of what happened at the protests and after them (with the ftaa), and partly because of the people i met there and have kept up with over the years. one of those people was emily.

i dont want to dress things up too much, but when i saw her i was immediately attracted to her. she had just turned 20, was free with herself, confident, and wanted to be involved. but we didnt hit it off straight away. i was in work mode and too worried about complicating or compromising the things i was involved with to be involved with another person in some kind of engagement. so, it was one night when i was drinking (i was drinking most nights) that she and i took a drive to the beach. we walked down the beach for awhile and then we were making out and then we were having sex. on the beach, in miami. how cliche, but it was also really great.

after that we were pretty much inseparable. i remember walking around downtown miami, after the protests the day she was leaving. i had lost my sunglasses and was unhappy because it was way too bright for my sensitive eyes. we went looking for them. and i just remember being happy walking around there with her. she left. i stayed for a another week or so, and then i left also, my traveling companion and i decided we would go visit our parents.

so from sunny november in miami we went to the middle of ohio, then the michigan, then to chicago. her family lived in ohio, then we went to michigan to see some of the friends we had made in miami. i went to see emily. and we just ran around with some young love/lust that was just so good. and we started to get to know each other more. then i had to leave again. on to indiana to see my family.

then back to portland and not long after being there, emily came to visit me. and

emily and i (2005)

then i visited her and she visited me again, something was building. and it felt good. i was still seeing other people in portland but part of the relationship that she and i were forming allowed space to see other people anyway, so all was good. in 2005 i went out to the midwest and the plan was that emily would move back with me. and so it happened on july 4th 2005 emily and i moved in together and were officially dating. (for reference, when we 'celebrated' anniversaries, we acknowledged them in around november 21st.)

we lived together happily for four years. we became as close to one another as people could be. it was really awesome, something i had never been a part of before. i wasnt loving every minute of it, but i was appreciating every minute of it. she challenged me alot, specifically to talk about myself and my feelings and put myself together as a whole person. and it worked. i wouldnt be on this trip reconnecting with all my old friends if it werent for the things that she helped me learn.

but, things dont always work out. about two weeks ago, i broke up with her. this time it was well thought out and for me to grow and heal and see what future existed for me. and for us together.

and so, the reason i am saying all of this now is because 1. i will not make it to miami 2. i am in jacksonville, fl which is where melissa medrano currently resides. i have attempted to contact her, but she will not have any contact with me. i never want another relationship to end up this way.

so, my 'outline' for this post was not want you have just read, sorry about that. next time i will try to stick more to my outlines. i was supposed to talk about the good friends that i had in my life and buttress that with the realtionship stuff, but it just got out of control.